


The Devil You Know (He's a Good Friend of Mine)

by Erandri



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Case Fic, Getting Together, Kidnapping, M/M, Nightmares, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Some Spoilers For Season 7
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-13
Updated: 2017-04-13
Packaged: 2018-10-15 05:51:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10551160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erandri/pseuds/Erandri
Summary: A simple murder should be an easy case for Five-0 to solve after the events with Dr. Gray, but when their murder turns out to be linked to two more similar murders their simple case gets complicated. When after weeks the team gets no leads, Steve is put under pressure from Governor Mahoe and is forced to call upon Alicia Brown to help profile their killer. Alicia is all too willing to help the team but Danny is suspicious whether her motivation is that she wants to help or if she wants to get in between his and Steve’s new relationship. Things get more complicated when Danny starts losing periods of time and waking up with memories of murdering each of their victims. As Danny slowly starts to pull away from everybody, the team discovers that not everything is as it seems with this case.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I had the idea for a story similar to this one months before the season 7 premiere and when the writers brought in the serial killer story line it was the perfect lead-in that I needed to write this. I haven't written a case fic in years and I think I've gotten a little rusty with it, but I hope I managed to do the story justice.
> 
> A huge thank you to [elizabethgrofskyramos](http://elizabethgrofskyramos.tumblr.com/) and [OnlyHim](http://archiveofourown.org/users/OnlyHim/works) for beta reading and cheerleading for me. They are absolutely amazing for putting up with reading my horrible first drafts. 
> 
> The playlist for this story was made by the amazing [Pterawaters](http://pterawaters.tumblr.com/). Listen to it on [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/user/pterawaters/playlist/3eptnammUGRSblB9ipb272) or [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjvnOgW3FdZ_7v4_ZobS3cH1rDlTbH7U4) and make sure to check out her [masterpost](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10578876) and give her some love there.

  

 

Danny is going to kill Steve. He is going to find him, make sure that he is healthy and that the doctors have stitched him up, and then he is going to kill him. Slowly. Preferably with something rusty so that he’ll be rolling over in his grave with tetanus while Danny tries to recover from the state of near-constant worry that Steve manages to keep him in.

Seven years of this, seven years of being called to hospitals by nurses that he’s on a first-name basis with because the team needs to get patched back together so often. Seven years of worrying that maybe today will be the day that Steve’s luck finally runs out. He should be used to the worry by now but he can still feel his hands shake every time the doctor comes to tell them any news and has to push down the panic attack so that he can be strong for his friends when they need him most.

The hospital is quiet at this time of night, late enough where the night owls have gone to sleep but not yet close enough to morning for the early birds to start waking. With the fluorescent glow of the lights overhead it all makes for an eerie sort of calm, the quietness in the long hallways only disrupted by the occasional beep of a monitor or the soft shuffle of paperwork from the night shift as they do their rounds. It’s a stark contrast to the hospital's usual bustle of activity but that’s what he gets for coming straight off the last redeye out of Newark.

He’s tired and has been fueled by nothing but coffee and anxiety for the better part of the day but he manages to make his way to the nurse's station without any issues and when he touches the counter it feels like he’s finished a marathon. He lets go of some of the tension that’s been bogging him down since he first got the call about Steve that afternoon and is relieved to see that Inoa is on call. She’s always had a soft spot for him and with one of her daughters on the force, she knows better than most how hard it is to sit uselessly in a waiting room while your partner fights for their life. Inoa looks up when she hears his footsteps approaching and gives him a wan smile for a hello. He doesn’t even have to ask before she gives him Steve’s room number.

“I was wondering when you were going to show up,” she says, not accusatory of his lateness but rather almost teasing him and he smiles for the first time in what feels like days.

“Yeah, well, you know how the H1 can get.”

It’s an absolutely ridiculous response, it makes no sense, but Inoa smiles like she knows exactly what he means to say. Maybe she does after all the time they’ve spent together in this damn hospital.

“He’s gonna be just fine. One stab wound, some bumps and bruises, but mostly just a little waterlogged. Once we got some fluids in him he was itching to go, but maybe you should go check on him, just to make sure he hasn’t pulled one of his disappearing acts again.” She gives him a wink, nodding her head towards the hallways and Danny wills his tired feet to move once again.

His mind is in a fog as he makes his way through the maze of halls, the adrenaline crash finally catching up to him and turning his thoughts and movements sluggish. The guilt doesn’t help either. Steve is his partner, Danny is supposed to have his back and when the time came that Steve really needed him, he was five thousand miles away having spaghetti dinner.

Despite visiting hours being well over, no one stops him as he makes his way to Steve’s room, his need to see that Steve is okay with his own eyes pushing him the last few near-insurmountable steps. The room is dark when he opens the door, the curtains pulled almost all the way closed to block out the glow from the streetlamps outside, but there’s just enough light shining through the gaps that Danny can see Steve looks no worse for the wear. There’s a Band-Aid on his forehead but other than that Steve looks unharmed. He knows that there’s more damage- Kono filled him in with the rest of the details when he called during his layover in Los Angeles- but the important thing is that Steve looks healthy and the relief is enough to have him collapsing down into the chair next to Steve’s bed. He grabs Steve’s hand to ground himself, softly running his thumb over the battered knuckles, feeling the roughness of the scabs from getting pushed into the volcanic rock over and over again, and calming when he feels the warmth of Steve’s hand in his.

Finally, the worst part is over. Seeing Steve sleeping peacefully in the hospital bed lifts that last crushing weight from his chest that had been making it hard for him to breathe. The hum of the equipment monitoring Steve’s vitals and the soft rhythm of Steve’s breathing lulls him and he finds himself sinking into his chair.

\---

He didn’t mean to fall asleep, but when he opens his eyes the room is considerably brighter. He groans and wishes that he could go back to sleep but that thought disappears entirely when he feels fingers carding softly through his hair. The touch is gentle, more a caress, and he unabashedly decides to pretend to be asleep for a few minutes longer just so he can focus on the little buzz that the feeling sends through him.

“I know you’re awake, Danno,” Steve says softly, drawing him out of his little happy place and back into disappointing reality- although, he’s not ashamed to admit that most of the disappointment stems from the fact that Steve moved his hand away from his head so that he could sit up.

“How are you feeling?” he asks to get attention away from the fact that he was just letting his partner pet him.

“I’m fine, Danny,” is Steve’s immediate response and just like that all of those sappy feelings from seconds ago disappear.

“You’re fine? You’re _fine?_ ” he yells, standing and taking a step back to distance himself from Steve. He can feel the rage from last night creeping back up on him, the helplessness of being five thousand miles away and only knowing that Steve was missing. “Okay, excuse me then because I thought that getting stabbed in the back and then dropped into some… some, murder pit by serial killers would constitute you not being fine. Excuse my logic, apparently, all the Hawaiian sun has gone to my head.”

“Danny-” Steve tries to interrupt, his face a mixture of fondness and some other emotion that Danny is too upset to try to decipher.

“No! Okay? This is the part where you shut up and listen. You were abducted by serial killers. Not just one, but three serial killers. Do you understand that?” He holds up three fingers to demonstrate his point and, irritatingly, Steve’s expression never changes. “These are people who get their rocks off by murdering people in sick, inventive ways. What were you thinking Steve? You went into that house without a warrant, without any of your gear on, and without telling anybody! Has nothing I have said over the last seven years made it through that thick skull of yours?

“And put yourself in my shoes for a second. I’m thousands of miles away when I get a call that my partner is missing. The team doesn’t have a goddamn clue except for the fact that you didn’t show up for a meeting, and I can’t do a thing to help them. Do you know how useless that made me feel? You could have been dead already and there was nothing that I could have done to stop it.”

“Danny,” Steve interrupts again, this time sitting up and swinging his feet over the side of the bed. He immediately moves to grab Steve’s legs and swing them back up onto the mattress but he’s intercepted when Steve grabs him by the arms and pulls him forward. He stops just a hairsbreadth away from Steve, standing in between his spread legs and coming face-to-face for the first time, “The whole time, since the moment Alicia called and told me she broke into Dr. Gray’s house, I was wishing that you were there with me to watch my back,” Steve tells him, his gaze focused on the hollow of his throat and slowly tracing his hands up and down Danny’s arms, raising goosebumps with each pass. “If you were there you would have thought to call the team for backup and we would never have been in that situation to begin with- I'm glad you’re here now,” Steve admits, finally looking up at him and giving just the barest hint of a smile.

“I hate that I'm here,” he immediately retorts, frowning when he comes off harsher than he intended.

“I know, and I'm sorry,” Steve says and there’s something in his voice, an openness in his eyes, that makes Danny bite off any snarky rejoinder. The way Steve’s looking at him makes him think that maybe Steve’s apologizing for something more than getting kidnapped.

They stay like that for too long, standing too close in the quiet room and he knows that he should pull away but he just can’t will himself to want to. “I’m tired of this, Steve,” he whispers after a long moment just examining Steve’s face. He looks so different from the man that he first met all those years ago, dark circles under his eyes from working himself too hard, new creases on his forehead from furrowing his brow when he’s trying to figure something out, light wrinkles framing his mouth when he frowns. Steve’s eyes soften at the admission and Danny knows that Steve understands that they’re not talking about the hospital visit anymore.

Slowly, Steve moves his hand up to Danny’s cheek, softly stroking his thumb over his temple and he lets out a contented sigh. He’s held fast under Steve’s gaze, now painfully aware of just how close they are, and waiting with baited breath for Steve to make the next move.

“Me too,” Steve says and ever so gently pulls him forward and kisses him. He’s not sure who exactly the gentleness is supposed to be benefitting but Steve’s lips are pliant against his and it’s perfect. It’s not how he imagined their first kiss would happen when he allowed himself the indulgence of imagining it. His daydreams usually had a lot more heavy ammunition involved and this is so far away from that that it’s almost sweet the way Steve wraps a hand around his waist to pull him closer. He doesn’t want the kiss to end but too soon Steve shifts wrong and pulls away with a wince.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, his fingers ghosting over Steve’s side where he’s holding his hand.

“Nothing, bruised a rib when I got caught in one of the surges,” Steve explains, grabbing Danny’s hand to stop it’s careful examination of his body, looking for more hidden injuries, and using his grip to pull Danny closer for another kiss that isn’t quite so gentle as the first.

“Liar,” he says pulling away once again, “I know it’s broken.”

Steve doesn’t bother to deny it, choosing instead to hook a finger through Danny’s belt loops to keep him close so that he can kiss him again, and again, and again, until they’re interrupted by one of the day nurses coming in to take a look at Steve’s vitals. Danny tries to jump away but Steve’s grip keeps them flush together as the nurse gives them a blushing apology. Batting Steve’s hands away, he takes a step back so that the nurse can have better access to Steve and figures that now’s as good a time as any to excuse himself.

“I’ll be back in a little bit to take you home,” he explains when Steve glances his way, questioning, “I need to go change, I’ve been wearing these clothes for close to two days now.”

“Okay,” Steve agrees, watching as he backs away from the bed and towards the door, “and shower too. You stink and I don’t want to be stuck in a car with you smelling like B.O. and airport.”

Steve’s smiling at him now, a big, soft, goofy smile that does all sorts of funny things to Danny’s heart and he can’t help but give a probably equally goofy smile in return. “Bitch, bitch, bitch. You can walk home you know,” he grouses but they both know that it’s all part of the act and that come hell or high water, he’ll be driving Steve back home later.

\---

For the first time in a long time, Steve wakes up happy. His bed is warm and a million times more comfortable than the hard mattress in the hospital and he still has the ghost of a sensation of Danny kissing him. The memory makes him smile, wishing that they’d had more time to continue what they started in his hospital room, but Danny had had hardly any sleep since Kono first called him and rather than having Danny pass out on him, Steve had told him to go home and get some rest.

He toys with the idea of calling Danny and seeing if he wants to come over but he nixes the thought just as soon as it appears. Danny went almost 48 hours with no sleep and knowing how rough mornings are for Danny after a regular week, he’s not keen to wake Danny any sooner than he has to. Still, he’s awake and rested and needs to burn some energy so he pulls on his board shorts and heads out to the beach for his usual morning swim.

He does cut his routine short, his broken ribs making it less of a swim and more him floating and doing some lazy, half-hearted backstrokes back and forth in front of the shore. When he figures he’s been in the water about fifteen minutes he gets out, toweling off and going inside to make coffee.

He’s barely gotten the grounds out of the cupboard when he hears the front door open and close and smiles because the only person that it could be is Danny. He listens to the footsteps approaching the kitchen and it’s only his training that keeps him from jumping when Danny runs a warm hand up his bare back and kisses him right between his shoulder blades.

“You’re supposed to be taking it easy,” Danny scolds him, shepherding him away from the coffeemaker and taking over for him.

“I’m making coffee, not running a marathon,” he fires back, grabbing a pair of mugs out of the cupboard and placing them next to Danny.

“And does making coffee usually involve so much saltwater?” Danny cocks an eyebrow at him, looking unimpressed. He just smiles and Danny glares as he pushes the start button on the coffeemaker, looking entirely put out that he’s not sitting cocooned in pillows and blankets on the couch.

Danny moves to get the creamer out of the fridge and he follows, crowding him against the wall as soon as he closes the door and kisses him. He swallows Danny’s noise of surprise and presses forward when Danny gets with the program and starts to kiss back. “Good morning,” Danny says as soon as they pull away, his voice sounding rough.

“It is now,” he smiles, enjoying the fact that he’s the one that made Danny sound like that.

“Sap,” Danny laughs but he kisses him again before moving away to pour their coffees. He watches as Danny adds a shot of cream to his, loving that Danny knows where he keeps his creamer, that he knows which is Steve’s favorite mug, that he knows how he takes his coffee. Suddenly, with the feeling of Danny’s lips still on his, the sight of Danny holding out his coffee mug to him holds so much more promise than it did before and he can’t wait to start every morning from now on like this.

\---

“There’s something different about you,” he overhears Kono say to Danny while they’re all at Kamekona’s, celebrating Adam’s early release.

“What do you mean?” Danny asks around a mouthful of today's special.

“I dunno, you seem… happy,” Kono decides on and he feels a jolt of pleasure go through him knowing that he’s the reason for that happiness.

“Am I not allowed to be happy? I just got back from a vacation from Mr. Crazy Pants over there,” Danny points his fork in his direction and he sees Danny stumble over his words when their eyes meet, “This is my post-vacation glow okay? Allow me to bask in it before we get another dead body dropped off at our front door.”

Adam, Chin, and Lou are now watching Danny too, snickering over his behavior as they continue to eat.

“No, it’s not that. I’ve seen you happy after a trip to Jersey and this isn’t it. This is something else. I wanna say you got laid last night but I know you and Melissa broke up a couple weeks ago and you’re not the casual hookup kinda guy,” Kono says, staring at Danny with all the determination that she does a suspect she needs to crack and he sees Danny shift nervously under her gaze. Flippa starts to play the first couple lines of “Let’s Get It On” again which causes Lou to burst out in a fit of giggles, Chin, Adam, and Kono trying hard not to follow him as Danny gapes open mouthed at all of them.

There’s an unspoken understanding between them that they would keep the change in their relationship to themselves for now. They had been dancing around each other for years but the actual intimacy was new and he knew neither of them wanted to jinx it by announcing their relationship before they had gotten used to it themselves. But just because he now knows that Danny likes it when he presses him against a wall and kisses him breathless, doesn’t mean that he can’t enjoy watching Danny squirm under Kono’s assessing eye.

“Okay, we are rapidly heading towards sexual harassment territory,” Danny says, wiping his mouth with a napkin, “and rather than sit through another seminar about appropriate comments in the workplace, I’m gonna go back to the office and do some work.” Danny stands and throws a couple dollars on the table for a tip and from Steve’s position at his side, he can see the hint of a blush inching up the back of Danny’s neck. Deciding to take things slow, they haven’t done anything more than heavy petting together, but even that has made the both of them very happy men. Not that the team needs to know that.

“That’s some Grade A deflection Danny, have you been seeing anyone?” Chin chimes in, thoroughly enjoying the chance to tease Danny. He looks back over to see Danny giving him a look, silently calling out for help, but he just leans back and raises his eyebrows, shrugging like _What can I do?_ With a roll of his eyes, Danny turns back to the team and says, “For the record, aside from my kids, the only people that I have been spending time with after work are all sitting at this table.”

The team still looks suspicious but their attention drifts from Danny to Steve when his phone starts to ring and he can’t help thinking saved by the bell. He listens to Duke relay the case information to him and ends the call, looking up apologetically to his team. “We got a case,” he says and everyone starts to stand. He stops Kono before she can move too much and tells her to take the day off. She and Adam deserve the time alone together and he can admit, at least in his own mind, that he wants to stop the teasing before either he or Danny has to reveal something before they’re ready to.

\---

Despite initial appearances, their gun theft case turns out to be one of their more normal ones. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a mountain of paperwork waiting for them to fill out, but at least Danny can do it knowing that there isn’t some terrorist organization on the island arming themselves by robbing gun ranges. He signs his name on the bottom of one of the papers and places it in his done folder, thinking longingly of the time before Five-0 when all he had to deal with was regular run-of-the-mill murderers. Now taking down terrorist cells is just another Wednesday for him.

He takes advantage of finishing one of the reports to stretch and look around the office, his gaze landing on Steve who’s sitting in his own office typing his own reports. He’s felt Steve’s gaze on him on and off all day but has resisted the urge to get up and go talk to him. They’ve been distancing themselves at the office lately, still trying to find that balance between wanting to be together all the time and needing to maintain a professional distance between them. Despite Kono’s constant commentary about his improved mood, no one seems to be the wiser that he and Steve are now together.

As if sensing Danny looking at him, Steve looks up and meets his gaze, his eyes softening and giving him a goofy, happy little smile that makes him feel warm all over. It takes the entirety of his considerable willpower not to blush at Steve's expression and pushes away the thought that this is exactly how it felt when he and Rachel were first dating.

The stolen glances and hidden touches have been subtle enough so far but if Steve keeps making eyes at him the way he has been, Danny can’t be responsible for his actions. He’s got half a mind to text Steve to meet him in the supply closet right now but before he can do anything that would breach HR’s protocol, Steve’s attention is drawn to their lobby.

He looks to see what’s caught Steve’s eye and sees Alicia walking into their lobby, casting a glance around the office before she spots Steve and makes a beeline for him. He gets up and follows her, intending to tell her exactly what he thinks about her breaking into a suspect's house without any probable cause but he doesn’t get the chance.

When he gets to Steve’s office Alicia has him wrapped in a hug, already talking to Steve. “- glad to see that you’re okay, Steve,” she says, slowly running her hands across Steve’s shoulders and down his arms in a move that can’t be interpreted as anything other than flirtatious. She’s standing too close to Steve for Danny’s comfort and he has to fight back the flare of jealousy that shoots through him. Turns out he doesn’t have to do anything, though, because as soon as Alicia notices that he’s in the office too, she takes a step back.

“Detective Williams,” she greets him in a tone that’s a far cry from the warm one that she was just using on Steve, “I didn’t notice that you were here.”

“Oh, I'm always with Steve,” he says with just enough inflection that Steve gives him I’m-Not-Impressed-With-You Face. Alicia seems to catch on to his intonation and makes to reply but Steve cuts her off.

“I’m so sorry that I couldn’t visit you in the hospital, the doctor said that they were doing more testing on you,” Steve gets her attention on him.

“They wanted to keep me monitored for a while since you had to do CPR on me, they were more worried about potential brain damage for me than they were for you,” she explains in that same soft voice.

“And are you okay?” Steve asks and Alicia quickly assures him that she’s fine. She looks it too. Any bruising that she might have had seems to have healed completely in the days since they were attacked.

“I was actually hoping we could go out sometime, just the two of us,” she says with a pointed look in his direction. He can’t blame her for it since he was about to invite himself along on whatever she’s trying to cook up. Steve looks wary at the suggestion, his mouth half open like he doesn’t know quite how to tell her thanks but no thanks to her suggestion. Alicia notices that Steve’s on the verge of saying no so she adds, “It’s just, there are some parts missing from my memory and I was hoping that we could talk everything over, maybe help to fill in some of those blank spaces.”

“When did you have in mind?” Steve finally asks.

“How about tomorrow night?” she asks and as soon as Steve starts to say okay, “Great. You’re busy so I’ll leave you but I’ll call you later so we can sort everything out?” Steve agrees again and Alicia gives his arm a squeeze before brushing past him and leaving Danny regretting wanting to keep things with Steve a secret.

“So, you two have a date,” Danny asks Steve as soon as Alicia is out of hearing range, not trying very hard to hide his displeasure at the thought of Alicia and Steve going out together. Even if he knows, logically, that he has nothing to worry about, the thought still bothers him.

“It’s not a date, she just wants to talk about the kidnapping.” Steve rebuffs, and Danny has to wonder how someone so smart can be so oblivious.

He makes a disbelieving noise but doesn’t take the subject any further, leaving to finish his paperwork before he can say something that will just make the both of them upset.

\---

True to her word, Alicia had called him just after he got out of work to set up when they were going to go out. When they were talking on the phone, it had sounded like Alicia had wanted someplace quiet where they could go over the details of their kidnapping and maybe have a drink or two but when he gets to the restaurant he finds that it’s not the casual kind of place he expected.

The Central City Lounge is crowded when he gets there, not unusual for a bar right on the beach on a Friday night. It’s a relatively new building, modern and geared more towards tourists than local clientele and he immediately longs for the familiarity of Rumfire or the Hilton. The more he searches the bar for Alicia, the more he realizes that this place is more suited for a date night than a night to wind down with some friends and he’s surprised that Alicia had chosen it for somewhere to talk about a kidnapping.

It takes him a while to spot Alicia through the throng of people, sitting in a booth towards the back of the room. She waves at him as soon as she sees him looking at her and he gives her a wave back to show that he’s seen her before slowly moving people out of his way so that he can get to her table.

“I hope you don’t mind, I ordered for you,” she says by way of hello, gesturing to a Longboard already condensing next to her glass of wine.

“That’s fine,” he tells her, slipping into the booth across from her. She’s dressed up tonight, wearing a white dress with her hair pulled up so that she fits right in with the rest of the crowd. Her outfit makes his untucked button up and blue jeans look slovenly next to her and the thought crosses his mind to ask why she’s so dressed up but Alicia starts talking before he can say anything more.

“How have you been? I haven’t seen you in a couple of weeks now,” she takes a sip of her wine and settles back into the seat, looking at him relaxed and content, “Any interesting cases with Five-0?”

He starts in on their last case, relaying to her some of the more interesting aspects like the guys' homemade armored bulldozer. By the time he finishes the story they’re both finishing their first drinks and he doesn’t even have to ask before a smiling waitress drops off a fresh bottle for him. Figuring that now’s as good a time as any to broach the topic, he leans forward and asks, “So what did you want to go over with me?”

“We’re having a good time, I don’t want to ruin it by talking about serial killers,” she says, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear before putting her hand on his. The touch doesn’t last more than a second before she pulls her hand away but it feels like it lingers and he flexes his hand to try to get rid of the odd sensation.

“Well, if you think it will help you, I don’t mind talking about it.” He’s starting to get a weird feeling about being out alone with her now, like maybe Danny had been more right about Alicia’s intentions than he had wanted to believe. The bar, Alicia’s dress, it all seems like Alicia and he had different opinions on what this night was going to be and he wants to just stick to the plan: have some drinks, talk about what they had gone through, and go home. Alone.

“It’s okay, Steve, really it’s not that important. We’re having a nice night out, let's just keep things light,” she takes a drink and he gives in, starting his second longboard.

Alicia tells him a little bit more about herself as they nurse their drinks and they do end up having a pleasant evening but still he can’t help but feel like they’re getting their wires crossed. When he finally finishes his second beer he pulls out his wallet, intending to pay for the both of them.

“You’re leaving?” Alicia asks as he signals their waitress for the bill. He makes up an excuse about how they had a long week at work and he’s tired, only embellishing a little, and paying the bill as soon as the waitress comes back. She smiles and thanks him and he smiles back before turning to see that Alicia’s face is now clouded.

“You should come out with the team some time,” he offers, feeling bad that he’s cutting this, whatever it is, short, “I think you would like hanging out with everybody.”

“I’ll think about it,” she agrees with a smile that even he can tell looks a little forced. He says goodbye to her once again, assuring her as they walk out of the bar that he’ll invite her the next time they go out for drinks, and heads back home.

He drives home on auto-pilot, wondering if he missed the signals somewhere that Alicia was interested in him, wondering how Danny knew and then vowing to himself that he won't tell Danny about what happened tonight. He pushes all of those thoughts away when he sees the Camaro parked in his driveway, the living room lit by the glow of the tv. He parks and heads inside, his mood lifting when he sees Danny half asleep on the couch.

“Hey,” Danny greets him, half asleep, his voice slurred a little from drowsiness. He looks comfortable, spread out on his couch in jeans and a t-shirt and waiting for Steve to get home. Danny turns on his side as he approaches and he sits on the little bit of space that Danny leaves in front of him on the cushion.

“Hi,” he says back, giving Danny a quick kiss and getting an idea, “We should go out.” Danny’s brow furrows in confusion and Steve just knows that he’s about to say something like what _else would you call making out like teenagers?_ so he clarifies. “On a date.”

“A date?”

“Yeah, you know. Fancy clothes, a nice restaurant. I pick you up from your place and maybe we finish the night at mine? Date.”

It’s a beautiful thing watching Danny’s face morph slowly from confusion to happiness. His eyes are hooded from trying to stay awake but there’s a light in them that has him mesmerized. “Okay,” Danny agrees happily and Steve nudges him forward, slipping between him and the back of the couch. He wraps an arm around Danny’s waist to keep him close and stares at the tv, watching a recap of the baseball post-season playoffs and already planning where he wants to take Danny.

\---

For the first time since they got together, he and Steve are alone in the office. Chin and Kono are out on the other side of the island chasing down leads, Jerry is buried under a mountain of ‘evidence’ for one of his conspiracy theories, and Lou is taking a long weekend to take Samantha on a college tour of Northwestern. All of which rounds out to a minimum of two hours alone together, which Steve took immediate advantage of.

You’d think that Steve was touch starved the way he made a beeline straight for his office the second the door closed behind Chin and Kono. It’s not like he didn’t stay over at Steve’s last night, but the way Steve’s eyeing him when he walks through his door says he wants to throw Danny over his shoulder and carry him off to his cave to have his wicked way with him. Danny can’t say he would mind all that much.

Unfortunately, or maybe, fortunately, there is woefully little paperwork to keep Steve occupied with, so working on the case quickly devolves into laying on his couch and exchanging sweet, slow kisses. So much for that keep it professional in the workplace rulethey made.

Honestly, the fact that he’s managed to not kiss Steve in front of the whole team yet is a minor miracle so he’s not too upset with bending the rules just this once. Eventually, he does summon the willpower to push Steve away far enough to catch his breath. “We can’t do this,” he protests as Steve starts nuzzling at his jawline, pressing kisses down his neck and pushing his shirt collar aside to expose more skin. Steve’s other hand is slowly making it’s way up his leg, teasing over his erection and doing a spectacular job of driving him out of his mind with want.

“Do what?” Steve asks like he doesn’t know exactly what he’s doing to Danny.

“We are not having sex in my office, Steven.”

“We could always have sex in my office,” Steve offers, his breath ghosting over the now bare patch of skin at the base of his neck which is not at all helpful to the situation.

“I’m serious, Steve,” he pushes Steve gently off him and sits up, putting a respectful distance between them.

“So was I,” Steve smirks before sobering, “What’s wrong?”

Steve trails off, unsure, and Danny hates himself a little for making Steve look like that. They’ve gotten comfortable in their relationship together, enough so that Steve has been more daring with public affection and Danny is all for how right it feels to be with Steve. That doesn’t mean that he isn’t terrified of what going public or worse, being _caught_ in public, could mean for them. “I want to do this right, okay? I don’t want to rush anything.” Steve gives him a look and Danny knows exactly what he wants to say. _It’s been four weeks, Danny. A month long secret relationship is hardly rushing anything._ “We have a lot to lose if this goes bad and when other people know about it, it’ll put a lot more pressure on us. The governor will want to make sure we’ll still be able to work together without our relationship clouding our judgment, we’ll have to go through questioning from IA to make sure we can still work together, it could affect the dynamic of the team, it could make other officers treat us differently. There’s a lot to consider before we take this further.”

“Danny,” Steve says as calm as can be, “First off, half of the island has thought we’ve been dating for years now. We would just be confirming their suspicions. Second, the team is going to be nothing but supportive for us, okay? I can’t tell you how many times Lou and Renee have joked about double dating with us, and Kono and Chin have been betting on us getting together since the start of Five-0. Yes, some people may treat us differently because we’re together and we'll have to go through an investigation but you know what? We’ve made it through a lot worse together.”

Steve squeezes his hand to reassure him and he feels more confident already. “You know, I think that that’s the most I've ever heard you say at once,” Danny jokes, feeling the tension in the air lift when Steve smiles.

“You’re such an ass,” Steve says, leaning forward to kiss him again.

“You love my ass,” he says when they pull apart and Steve hums in agreement, “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah, we’ll tell people about us.” Steve’s eyes go wide and his mouth parts a little in surprise. It’s adorable. “Not yet, I want Grace and Charlie to be the first to know, but soon. I promise.”

Steve gets a look in his eyes that Danny has learned promises inappropriate things in their future and he puts a hand on Steve’s chest to stop him. “Uh uh, all that,” he says, waving his hand around Steve’s head to include every dirty thought that Steve’s having right now, “save all that for our date.”

“But that’s in three days!” Steve pouts.

“Well then, I guess you’ll have plenty of time to refine your ideas,” he teases and Steve scowls. He wants to kiss the pout from Steve’s face but the sound of footsteps coming through the lobby stop him and they both turn just as Alicia opens his office door. He jumps away from Steve, hoping that he made the move look natural but doubting that he achieved it. Fortunately, Steve keeps his cool and speaks with Alicia while Danny crosses his legs in a manner that he hopes doesn’t look too telling. Alicia glances at him quickly but if she notices anything about their rumpled clothes or kiss swollen lips she doesn’t let on and he is all too happy to pretend they weren’t well on their way to completely breaking the _keep it professional in the workplace_ rule.

\---

He’s nervous as he waits for Steve to come pick him up, which is absolutely ridiculous. He and Steve have known each other for years and have been dating for a month. There is absolutely no reason for him to be nervous just because Steve wants to take him out to dinner, but just because his brain is telling him one thing doesn’t stop him from checking his outfit in the mirror for the third time.

Steve hadn’t been willing to give him much detail about what he had planned for tonight, in fact, the only information Steve had given him when he asked was a smug “dress up”. So really, it’s going to be all Steve's fault if he’s overdressed to go to a luau or wherever it is Steve chose.

He tugs on the bottom of his vest to smooth it out and runs a hand down the buttons, deciding at last that he doesn’t look like a waiter tonight. He decided on a simple outfit, black dress pants, black fitted suit vest, and a light gray shirt which he’s still trying to decide whether or not to roll the cuffs up. He decided to forgo a tie in deference of Steve’s preferences and knowing that, if tonight ended the way he planned, it was only going to get in the way. A knock at the door sets his heart racing and he opens it to see Steve looking mouthwatering in a suit of his own. At least that puts to rest his fear that he’s overdressed.

“You look… wow,” Steve fumbles, openly ogling him. It’s not often he wears a suit vest, they’ve always felt a little confining to him, but he’s glad that he decided to just to see Steve react so viscerally.

“You don’t look so bad yourself,” he says, running a hand over the lapels of Steve’s jacket. Steve decided to go tieless too and seeing that little bit of chest poking out from under Steve’s shirt makes him want to just say screw dinner and haul Steve inside. No wonder Steve has such an obsession with kissing that particular area of skin.

“Ready?” Steve asks. He nods and Steve waits for him to lock up before escorting him to the truck with a hand on the small of his back. Steve even opens up the door for him, laughing when he protests that he’s not a girl and says, “Trust me. I know.”

Danny tries to figure out where they’re going but after the third time they pull on to Kalakaua Avenue, he realizesrealises that Steve is intentionally messing with him. Eventually, Steve parks and leads him to a restaurant called _Holokai_ where a maitre d’ leads them to a table on a balcony with a view of the black outline of Diamond Head in the distance.

“Wow babe, you pulled out all the stops,” he praises as their waitress immediately comes up to the table to fill their water glasses.

“Maybe I wanted to impress you,” Steve says when she leaves and Danny laughs. His nerves from earlier are gone, tossed aside when he remembered that this is _Steve_. He doesn’t have anything to worry about with Steve by his side.

Dinner actually turns out to be very romantic, but as good a time as Danny is having, he can’t help but want to get to the after dinner portion of their night. Steve must know exactly where Danny’s mind has been since he picked him up because Steve seems to be in just as much of a hurry as he is to get back to Steve’s house. They don’t rush through dinner but it’s only the insane cost of their meals that keeps them eating normal sized bites. He’ll be damned if he’s going to get a thirty dollar steak and not take the time to enjoy it.

When they do finish, Steve pulls out his wallet and leaves enough cash on the table to cover their meal as well as a generous tip for their waitress. Danny is prepared to make a crack about Steve finally remembering his wallet but when Steve looks at him the words die on his tongue. Steve’s looking at him full of anticipation, the wine they drank during their meal making his face more open and Danny can see the months, hell _years_ , worth of longing written on Steve’s face.

Steve turns to lead him out of the restaurant and bumps right into a woman the maitre d’ is sitting at the table next to them. Steve apologizes profusely but the woman doesn’t seem to mind his interference one bit. Danny is forced to watch as the woman’s face turns from surprised to salacious, taking opportunity in Steve’s closeness to keep her hands on his waist where they had landed when they bumped into each other.

“I’m so sorry,” Steve apologizes again, pulling out the woman’s chair and for a second Danny gets an unfortunate look at what kind of person Steve could have.

“That is absolutely alright,” the woman drawls, giving Steve a smile and acting for all the world like Danny isn’t even there while Steve pushes in her chair. He has to beat away the green eyed monster rearing its ugly head, telling his anxiety that Steve chose him. Lord knows why, but out of everyone Steve could have, he chose an angry loudmouth from New Jersey whose baggage has baggage.

Just as suddenly as it happened, Steve is leaving the woman and acting like he’s already forgotten the whole incident. It makes it easy for him to forget too when Steve pushes him against the truck and kisses him. It’s like a dam breaking, suddenly all those repressed urges come bubbling up out of him and he has to force Steve away because they are _not_ having sex in a restaurant parking lot.

“Let’s go home,” he says against Steve’s lips.

He doesn’t even complain when Steve breaks the speed limit.

\---

He’s in the breakroom finishing his lunch when Alicia walks in. With Steve in a meeting with the governor all day and the rest of the team out chasing leads, it’s one of the rare days that he’s eating alone. She spots him easily and starts making her way across the office, her heels telegraphing her approach.

She’s been spending more and more time at the office lately and Danny is under no illusions that she has any business here other than to try and flirt with Steve. Sure, she’s been trying to make nice with the rest of the team, even going out for drinks with them a couple weeks ago, but she always comes off as distant to the rest of them. It makes that green eyed monster want to rear its head again but he trusts Steve and knows that he wouldn’t do anything with Alicia. That doesn’t mean he has to like her, though.

“If you’re looking for Steve, he’s in a meeting with the governor,” he greets her around a mouthful of Chinese food.

“Actually, I was looking for you.” She sits down across from him looking unsure. When all he does is raise an eyebrow at her and swallow the moo goo gai pan he had been chewing, she continues, “I feel like we got off on the wrong foot, Danny.” She sounds awkward saying his first name and to be honest, it feels weird to hear her call him something other than Detective.

“When you and Steve first came to me about the murders, it brought back a lot of painful memories for me. I’m sure Steve’s told you that the last serial killer case I worked ended with my only daughter being murdered. I’ve had to live with the knowledge that she died as a direct result of my own actions and I had been doing an okay job with that, but when you asked me to help you… I wasn’t sure if I could handle the fallout.

“I wasn’t in a good place after her death, and that led to me having to leave the FBI and getting as far away as I could from D.C.. I fought for a long time to get my life back on track and I was worried that I could slip. Fall back to how I was after Sienna-- but being with Steve and talking with him has really helped me. Now that a little time has passed I can see how monopolizing Steve’s time could have rubbed you the wrong way. I know he’s your partner and I just wanted to say that it wasn’t my intention to act like I was trying to brush you all off,” she says the word _partner_ with just enough inflection that Danny knows she pieced together that they’re dating. Rather than worrying about a secret they’re going to tell anyway, he ignores it.

“Listen, I'm not going to blame you for not wanting to put yourself right in the middle of what turned out to be a very traumatic situation, and I'm not going to hold your coping mechanisms against you,” he tells her, wiping his mouth and pushing his take out box away. “I know what it’s like to be in your shoes and I'm glad you decided to talk to me about it.”

He knows exactly what it’s like to carry around the weight of a family member's death and he can understand all too well Alicia’s reluctance to enter a situation that reminded her of all that guilt. An odd look flashes across Alicia’s face but before he really sees it, it’s gone and she’s smiling at him.

“Truce?” she asks and he manages to convince himself that it was just his imagination making him see things as he reaches across the table. Alicia has a surprisingly firm handshake and somehow in the movement, his arm gets bumped into his glass of water, knocking it over and spilling it across the table. Alicia’s apologizing before he even fully realizes what’s going on and demands that he not help her while she cleans up the spill and refills his glass for him.

\---

They aren’t even out of his driveway when his phone starts to ring, Duke's name popping up on the screen. “Duke, what can I do for you?” he asks, pausing at the end of the driveway and hoping that they aren’t being called to a case already.

“I’m afraid it’s not very good news, Steve.” Duke’s voice comes out sounding grave and he shoots a quick look over to Danny to see him looking equally anxious, “There’s been a murder out in Manoa, a young woman. It got called in a couple hours ago.”

“We’re on our way,” he says, turning right out of the driveway, “What else can you tell us?”

“She was strangled,” Duke relays, “It looks like her attacker broke in sometime during the night and suffocated her but there’s something else. This murder matches almost exactly to another case about two weeks ago up in the Punchbowl.”

He shares a look with Danny, knowing exactly what case Duke is talking about. Officer Pua had been on it and from what he told them, it had sounded brutal. “I’ll call Chin,” Danny mutters, already pulling out his phone.

“We’ll be there as soon as we can, Duke,” he says and hangs up, pressing down on the accelerator a little harder. While he navigates through the morning traffic, Danny calls the rest of the team to give them the information and by the time he hangs up from Chin they’re almost at the scene.

Danny puts his phone away with a sigh and rubs at his temples the way he does when he’s getting a headache. “You okay?” Steve asks, glancing over.

“Yeah, I'm fine,” Danny assures him but he can tell that Danny’s trying to downplay whatever it is that’s bothering him. He gives Danny a look and he immediately caves, “I just didn’t sleep well last night. I’m getting a headache because of it.”

“I thought you seemed a little restless,” he admits, feeling bad now that he hadn’t woken up to try and help Danny. “Are you worrying about how the kids will take the news?”

He has to ask because Danny had said he was going to tell them when he had them both this weekend. Rachel and Stan were both going to be off the island and they both knew that it was time they started telling people.

“No,” Danny says and then seems to reconsider. “That’s a little of it I guess.”

He wants to ask Danny to elaborate but they’re already pulling up behind a cruiser, the lights still flashing, and he sees Duke waiting for them on the front porch. “Thanks for coming, guys.” Duke greets the both of them as soon as they get out of the car. The house is small, painted a vibrant teal blue with white shutters and manicured flowerbedsflower beds on either side of the front door. The inside of the house is just the same, bright and lively, even with a half dozen officers roaming around the place, but as they step further into the house the chaos begins to appear. Pictures are knocked off the hallway walls, there’s a broken vase next to an end table, the area rug on the living room floor is rucked up at the feet of their victim, obviously kicked that way in the struggle between the victim and her attacker.

Their victim is laid in the middle of the room, still wearing her pajamas. She looks to be in her mid-thirties, her short blonde hair fanned around her head, messy and tangled, and her glasses lying askew on her face. Noelani is already there, doing her preliminary examination of the body.

“What do we have?” Steve asks her, kneeling next to the body to get a better look. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Danny start to walk around the perimeter of the living room, getting a good look at the crime scene.

“I ran our victim’s fingerprints. She was in the system so I got a match right away,” Noelani says, looking away from their victim. “Her name is Jennifer Tomey, thirty-four years old.” The name pings something in the back of his mind and when he looks again he realizes that, without the glasses, he recognizes her from the Governor's mansion. They hadn’t known each other really, but the rare times they had to make small talk it was always friendly and he’s heartbroken to see someone who had been so kind to him murdered so viciously.

“She used to be an aide at the Governor's office,” Duke adds on while Noelani continues her examination, confirming what he already knows.

“Used to?” Danny asks, immediately thinking the same thing that he is, that this could be politically motivated.

“Her file says she quit last week and we found some paperwork that suggests she just got a job working for Senator Schatz.”

“Okay, are we talking about a potential political scandal?” Danny asks, heading over to the desk that Duke pointed at to look at the papers scattered across it.

“Can’t rule it out.”

“What else have you got?” He asks, stepping away from the body to give Noelani some more room.

“It looks like our attacker came in through the front door and attacked her in the hallway. She put up a fight, she’s got bruising on her arms where her attacker had to restrain her, but so far the techs haven't been able to find any DNA evidence,” Duke reads his case notes off to them.

“You said she was suffocated?” Steve asks Noelani.

“That would be correct, Commander,” she confirms, closing up her kit and standing, “My initial examination points to manual strangulation as the cause of death. The other bruising on the body appears to be mostly superficial and wouldn’t have caused her much harm. Of course, I won’t be able to confirm this until I do an autopsy.”

He thanks Noelani as Danny asks Duke about the previous murder. “We can’t be sure they’re related yet, but in both cases the homes had a security system but it was disabled using the victim’s code. The timestamps for the last entry were for almost the same time. It appears that both victims let their attacker into their homes and the cause of death was the same.”

“Anything taken in either case?” Danny asks.

“Not that we can tell. We’re still investigating but we can’t seem to find a link between the two women besides the way they died.”

“We’ll look into it,” Steve assures Duke, getting a sinking feeling in his gut that this case is going to be a bad one.

They don’t spend much more time at the crime scene, leaving to give more room to the techs who are still canvassing the house. By the time they get back to the office, Chin has some notes on the Tomey case and the file for the previous victim, Sarah Miller. The Miller crime scene has already been cleaned and the case notes are detailed so there’s no sense in heading there, so while they wait for more information to come in from the second crime scene they start the tedious job of looking for links between their two victims.

\---

The sound of something crashing jolts him into consciousness but all Danny can see is blackness surrounding him. His pulse jumps, his adrenaline kicking in but part of him still feels like it’s asleep, sluggish as he tries to claw his way into awakeness. Another crash, sounding further away this time, gets his attention and he tries to focus his hearing on where the sound came from. Footsteps follow the crash, sounding heavy on the floor and his brain tells him that it’s his feet making the jarring sound. There’s another crash, sounding like something hard hitting a wall right in front of him just before a woman screams.

His blood runs cold, his hair standing on end as he listens to the shrill screams continue. The woman is begging for help, shrieking at him to get away from her while he hears the slap of skin hitting against skin, the sounds of her trying to fight him off.

There’s the sound of movement again and then a loud dull thud of a body hitting a floor before the woman is screaming again. He feels like he’s going to jump out of his skin, his whole body strung tight with fear as the screaming continues, getting quieter and more desperate as they go on. With a growing horror, he realizes that he knows these sounds, has heard the panicked, desperate gasps more times than any person deserves to and knows with absolute certainty that he’s listening to this woman die. There’s one more soft, choked out sob before everything goes quiet.

It seems like forever before there’s another sound, a soft shuffling that has him sitting bolt upright in his bed, wide awake and shaking. He takes a few unsteady breaths before he’s calm enough to realize that he’s in his house, in his bed. Alone. There’s no dead body in front of him, no woman in the house at all, and he breathes out a sigh, cradling his head in his hands and rubbing the heels of his palms into his eyes like maybe that will help him banish the sounds.

When his heart begins to slow back down he slips out of bed. The hardwood floor is cool on his bare feet as he makes his way to the kitchen but it’s calming, helping him find his way out of the dream space. He fills a glass full of water and downs half of it before he feels like he can take a steady breath again, nearly dropping the glass to the floor when he thinks he hears footsteps in the other room. A quick check shows that he is in fact alone in the house, but the goosebumps all along his arms don't abate. Knowing he has to get some sleep so that he can be awake enough to chaperone Grace’s dance that night he heads back to bed, but it takes him a long time to feel comfortable in the sheets again.

\---

He and Lou watch as Will spins Grace under his arm and dips her a little in the middle of the restaurant floor. The server behind the counter looks bored out of her mind as she watches the kids spin around the room one last time. They had told the kids to take as much time as they wanted but he can’t say he’s upset that they’re going for their jackets already. It’s been a long night and he just wants to crawl into bed and forget all about his little girl being held hostage.

Of course, that thought leads to him remembering how Steve rescued them and how he actually told Steve to pick a base right in front of his daughter. He’s glad Steve was able to keep a level head and went for the hug because if he had asked for anything else, Danny probably would have gone through with it right then and there in the middle of the ballroom floor. He still might have Steve pick another base later, in the privacy of Steve’s house where they won’t scar Grace’s entire class.

The kids head towards the cars and he says goodbye to Lou before he gets out of the SUV and gives Will a handshake, telling him that he did good. He watches and refrains from saying anything as Will shoots him a cautious look before giving Grace a chaste kiss on her cheek and then climbs into Lou’s SUV.  He can see Lou chuckling at his embarrassed son as Will closes the passenger door and they drive away. He leads Grace over to the waiting Camaro, opening the door for her before he circles around to the driver's seat.

Grace won’t look at him, choosing instead to stare out the window at the passing lights, and he knows her avoidance is either one of two things: worry over what he’s going to say about her dating or embarrassment from watching Will give her a kiss goodnight. He decides that the former is the easier of the two to deal with.

“Will is a very good kid,” he starts, knowing that he needs to choose his words carefully, “He handled himself very well tonight, better than most kids his age would have. What I'm trying to say is, you could have picked a worse kid to date.”

“Wow, Danno, that’s almost a compliment,” she jokes, and then more serious, “Are you saying that you approve?”

“I’m saying I don’t disapprove,” he smiles and glances over to see her chewing on her bottom lip. “I just wish you had told me sooner is all.”

“I know, it’s just… you’re always calling me your little girl and saying how you don’t want me to grow up. I guess I didn’t want to disappoint you or something. Plus, you were totally embarrassing tonight when you found out.” She tries to play it off but he can see she’s still worrying her lip so he pulls into an empty parking lot and puts the car in park.

“Listen, Gracie. You could never disappoint me. Everyday I consider it a privilege to watch you grow up and explore who you are and I’ll just have to accept that you’re at an age where dating is now involved in that. No matter what, you’re always going to be my little girl, so don’t you worry about that. You could be eighty with great grandchildren and I’ll still call you my Monkey. I just don’t want you to feel like you have to keep secrets from me.”

Grace unbuckles and leans over the console to hug him and he returns it as best he can, burying his nose in her hair and savoring the tender moment, rare as they are now with Grace embracing the teenager attitude. After a long while, she pulls away with a sniffle, wiping tears from her cheeks, and he figures that now’s as good a time as any to tell her about his new relationship with her Uncle Steve. In for a penny and all that.

“Listen, Gracie, since we’re being honest, there is something that I need to tell you.” Her eyes widen expectantly in the glow of the streetlight and he figures he should tell her just like ripping off a Band-Aid, “Your Uncle Steve and I are dating.”

There’s a long pregnant pause in the car and then Grace is shrieking, reminiscent more of when she was eight than the fifteen-year-old she is, and he feels a wash of relief at her acceptance, “I knew it! I _knew_ that there was something different about you!” she all but shouts, “How long? Does anyone else know? Does Charlie know? Can I tell Charlie? Who asked who out?”

She rattles off more questions but he ignores most of them, putting the Camaro back in drive and pulling out onto the empty street. “Hey, how about we go back to talking about you and Will, huh?” he says when she pauses for a breath.

“Nuh-uh, you gave me crap about having a secret boyfriend when you had one too, so you owe me,” she says confidently.

“Language,” he warns but she’s already asking more questions and he’s just grateful that it’s dark enough that she can’t see his pleased smile

\---

He’s inside a house. It takes him a second to recognize it but the surroundings are familiar and eventually, he places the house as Jessica Tomey’s. The walls are painted a soft blue and the dark hardwood floors sparkle. There are pictures hanging on the wall beside him but he doesn’t pay any attention to them, instead, he moves further into the house, focusing on the woman in front of him. Jessica Tomey. She has her back to him, rifling through one of the drawers in the desk in front of her, and it’s obvious that she hasn’t heard him enter the room. He takes a couple silent steps forward, quickly closing the distance between them in the small house. Still, Jessica makes no acknowledgment of him, keeping her attention on her task.

He waits a couple of seconds, standing just behind her before he moves. He lunges forward, wrapping an arm around her throat. She screams, high-pitched and terrified, but he cuts her off by placing a hand over her mouth. She thrashes then, swinging her arms to push him off, claw at him, whatever she can do until his hold breaks.

She makes a break for the front door, pushing pictures off the walls and knocking things over as she goes, but he’s too fast for her. He hears them both hit the floor and Jessica cries out in pain and fear. She’s still thrashing but the fall has dazed her, making her movements slower and less coordinated. He gets a hand on her, grabbing her by both wrists and dragging her kicking and screaming back into the living room where he throws her back onto the floor.

He climbs on top of her to hold her down and grabs her by the throat. Her eyes go wide with panic and she tries to struggle but there’s nothing more that she can do. He watches as his hands tighten around her throat and then it only takes a few seconds for her crying to stop, choked off when she just can’t take in any more air. Her hands drop to the floor with a thud, her eyes still open but staring lifelessly at the ceiling.

“Danny! _Danny!_ ” he hears Steve shouting his name and jolts upright, almost headbutting Steve who’s leaning over him.

Steve looks concerned and it takes him a moment to realize that he was having another nightmare. He sinks back onto the bed, covering his eyes partly in shame but mostly to try and banish the dream from his mind. He had thought the last one had been bad but at least he hadn’t had to watch the murder.

“Nightmare?” Steve asks hesitantly and he almost jumps, forgetting for a second that he was there. When he doesn’t answer Steve says, “I get them too. Sometimes.”

He doesn’t say anything but he does take his hands away from his face. Steve takes it as his cue to do something and Danny lets Steve turn him on his side and wrap his arms around him. “This okay?” Steve asks, hooking his chin over Danny’s shoulder.

“Yeah,” Danny admits. Having Steve wrapped around him makes him feel safe. Which is absolutely ridiculous because any other hour of the day Steve is doing his level best to get them both shot, or blown up, or worse, but right now it’s just comforting.

“We can talk about it if you want,” Steve says quietly and Danny wonders whom he used to talk about his nightmares with. Catherine probably.

“Not tonight,” he says. It’s still too raw in his mind and he doesn’t want to relive the horrible vision of killing their victim.

“Okay,” Steve says and holds him tighter.

\---

He and Danny had decided to tell the Ohana about their relationship over a BBQ at his house that they had planned for the day after Grace’s winter formal. After the hostage situation, he had been worried that they would have to postpone, but everyone seemed to need an excuse to relax and the BBQ had been the perfect opportunity. Everyone seems happy, hanging around his back yard drinking and laughing, but his happiness is overridden by nerves.

“You need to relax,” Danny says, coming up to him at the grill under the pretense of checking on how the food was coming along. “It’s going to be fine.”

“I know it’s going to be fine,” he says, stabbing a steak with more force than necessary and transferring it to a serving platter, “It’s just big news is all.”

“Hey, telling Grace and Charlie went okay, didn’t it?” Danny reassures him, and he does settle down a little bit. Telling the kids had been one of his biggest worries. If they had been uncomfortable with the change he knew with absolute certainty that Danny would have ended their relationship, done whatever he could to make sure his kids were happy even if it went against what he wanted for himself. He would have understood, Danny’s kids are his life, but he’s grown to think of them as his own too. If they had said they didn’t want him to be with their father, it would have crushed him.

Thankfully, when Danny had come in the night before he had been all smiles as Grace sat on the couch next to a half asleep Charlie and told him that Danno and Uncle Steve were _partner_ partners. Not even Danny’s nightmare later that night had been able to douse the elation he felt at having all three Williamses staying in his house, like a real family.

“What’s taking you so long, McGarrett?” Lou yells, interrupting his thoughts, “I’ve been waiting for an hour watching you cook those steaks.”

“Hey, you can’t rush perfection,” he yells back, plating the last of the steaks and taking them over to the table where everyone is waiting. It’s crowded with Grace and Charlie, Chin and Abby, Kono and Adam, Nahele and the entire Grover family gathered around one table but he and Danny find room to squeeze in next to each other. Lou starts grabbing at the food as soon as it’s on the table but he stops when Steve clears his throat and stands up as soon as everyone’s attention is on him.

“I have some news to share,” he starts out awkwardly, “well, _we_ have some news to share.”

He gestures between him and Danny who looks up at him supporting. They had decided that Danny would tell the kids and Steve would tell the family but he hadn’t expected it to be so difficult. He hadn’t known that it was possible to feel so happy and fearful at the same time.

“Danny and I are dating,” he finally tells them. It takes a second but then the table erupts into cheerful applause. There’s quite a bit of ribbing about what took them so long but everyone seems genuinely excited for them and he pretends he doesn’t notice the not-so-subtle exchange of money around the table.

He knows that tomorrow they’ll all go back to a case with no leads, to stressful jobs and learning to deal with dating teenagers. That first thing in the morning he and Danny will have to officially notify the Governor and IA, but for right now all that matters is eating with his Ohana and listening to Chin tease Kono about how he figured out they were dating before she did.

\---

It’s not until he’s trying to make himself dinner that he realizes his fridge is completely empty. Well, not completely, but he can’t remember the last time he ordered Chinese takeout and he doesn’t want to risk food poisoning just because he’s tired and it’s the only thing already cooked. He tries to think about where all his food went since he just went shopping a couple days ago, finally remembering that it all went to Steve’s house just as Eric walks in the front door.

“Yo, Uncle D, I'm glad you’re here,” Eric says as soon as he spots him. Eric drops his workbag on the floor and kicks off his shoes, leaving everything in a haphazard pile that has him giving his nephew a disapproving glare. Danny knows he’s not the cleanest guy to live with, but at least he can keep his mess contained to his own bedroom. Eric leaves his things strewn around the whole house, which has lead to more than one instance of Grace proclaiming her disgust when she finds some of her cousin's dirty clothes lying around.

“Why wouldn’t I be at my own house?” he asks but, like usual, Eric doesn’t even register his annoyance.

“I mean you’re usually at Steve’s place doing… whatever things you do,” Eric says and Danny definitely does not need his nephew thinking about him and Steve ‘doing things’.

“Please, whatever you do, do not elaborate on that. I do not need you thinking about me doing anything except my job and that is only because, and I hate that I'm actually admitting this, you actually help me do my job,” he tells Eric, shutting the fridge and turning around so that they can talk face to face. He regrets it immediately when he sees Eric beaming with the praise.

“That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about,” Eric jumps in.

“You found something?” he asks excitedly. This case has been one dead-end after another and they could use any new information they could get.

“Not exactly,” Eric says and pulls an evidence bag out of his pocket, handing it over with a barely suppressed smile.

“What is this?” he asks taking the bag, seeing that there’s a single hair in it.

“Well, when Noelani was doing her autopsy of the second victim, Jessica Tomey, she found this hair and we got a match like, instantly.”

“You got a match?” If their killer is in the system, they can have this case wrapped up by the weekend.

“Yeah, to you, Eric laughs and Danny’s blood runs cold. Memories flit through his mind of chasing their victim through her house, holding her down and killing her with his own hands, “It must have fallen on her when you and Steve checked out the scene. Don’t worry Uncle D, I marked it as a mistake so no one will think you’re the killer,” Eric slaps him on the back and leaves the room with a laugh, calling out, “Maybe you should take some of your hair gel to Steve’s place, that way you can still tame that thing you call a hairstyle.”

Danny hears the TV in the living room turn on, Eric already forgetting their conversation, but he’s stuck staring down at the evidence bag because he never got close enough to their victim for his hair to get on her.

\---

He’s standing in front of a white door, simple but still somehow elegant, and for a foolish second, he thinks that maybe it’s Heaven. The illusion is shattered when a young woman opens the door, looking tired and confused. She’s in her pajamas, trying to wipe the sleep from her eyes as she speaks to him but he can’t hear what she’s saying. After a second she opens the door to him and he follows her inside, already knowing what’s going to happen from here.

The woman looks faintly familiar and it takes him a moment to recognize her as the woman who practically felt Steve up when they had their first date. The memory makes something dark seethe within him, remembering the casual way she had tried to flirt with Steve, completely ignoring Danny in the process. Now, dressed in a crummy old t-shirt and oversized sleep pants, she doesn’t seem so intimidating as when she was wearing that sleek dress.

She points to the phone and he pauses by it, picking it up off the receiver while the woman continues on into the house. After a second, he puts the phone back and follows her into the living room. She notices him enter and says something but he doesn’t respond.

Just like all the other times, the scenes play out like a movie. Feeling more like a memory than the nightmares that they are. He watches the woman screams, feeling unpleasantly off kilter when no sound comes out, and then she starts running. Just like Jessica Tomey, this woman puts up a fight, knocking things in his way as she runs through the house and then devolving to hitting and scratching when he catches her and pushes her to the floor just as she was reaching for the knife block on the kitchen counter.

When he turns her around she looks terrified. His heart is racing and he keeps telling himself to stop, to just wake up, that this isn’t right, but it doesn’t stop him from wrapping his hands around her neck. She doesn’t last long before he can see the light disappear from her eyes, leaving them dull and unseeing.

Just as soon as she dies, he wakes up wrapped in sweat covered sheets and shaking. He wants to reach out and grab his phone, call Steve to listen to the soothing sounds of his voice. He doesn’t. If he calls Steve at this hour he’ll be concerned and have questions that Danny can’t answer. Or worse, he’ll want to come over and no matter what Danny says he knows he wouldn’t be able to stop Steve from seeing him so broken.

Decision made, he lies back down and watches the slow turn of his ceiling fan, imagining Steve next to him and praying that he doesn’t get any more dreams tonight.

\---

They have a stalker, and the fact that it’s a government appointed shadow doesn’t help the fact. He had been worried that something like this would happen once he and Steve disclosed their relationship but he hadn’t expected it to be so exhausting. Governor Mahoe may have been the one to request an officer observe them but he’s sure that everyone down at the Internal Affairs office jumped at the chance to try and knock Five-0 down a peg. A task force with full immunity and means is bound to be enemies with the people who investigate police misconduct, and Danny knows they’ve had enough of that over the years. Just because Officer Kehale supposedly answers directly to the governor for this case doesn’t stop him from walking around with a smug sense of self-righteousness.

It’s only the second day of their observation and between Kehale and their case, he’s about ready to start shooting things. Their political scandal angle turned up bupkis and, even though the techs went over both scenes with a fine-toothed comb, there’s no evidence to point them in the direction of their killer. So now they’re working under the assumption that two women with no apparent connections were murdered by the same person. Add in his increasing number of sleepless nights and the constant migraine and it doesn’t make for a pleasant office atmosphere. By the end of the day, even Steve isn’t quite brave enough to enter the tempest swirling around his office.

When his phone rings, he doesn’t even think to look at who’s calling him, just answers with a growled, “Williams.”

“Well, don’t you sound positively jolly,” Rachel says into the line, her accent only increasing her sarcasm.

“Sorry,” he says and takes a deep breath. The last thing he wants to do right now is to get into a fight with his ex-wife, “What’s up, Rachel?”

“Well, Stan and I were invited to a fundraising dinner last minute and we were wondering if you would like to take the kids tonight?” she asks hesitantly. He does have to hand it to her, ever since the news about Charlie came out she’s been making an effort to give him more time with the kids whenever he can get it. It doesn’t make up for missing the first years of his son’s life, but it’s better than not having that extra time together at all, “I know a last minute overnight visit isn’t ideal but I assumed you would like the option before we called a sitter.”

He wants desperately to say yes, of course, he’ll watch his own kids, but he falters once Rachel says it’s overnight. There’s hardly been a night since this case started where he hasn’t had a nightmare and he doesn’t want Grace and Charlie to wonder why he woke up screaming in the middle of the night. They’ve gotten so bad that he’s stopped sleeping over at Steve’s so that at least one of them will have had a full night's rest. Even if by some miracle he doesn’t have a nightmare with them staying over there’s still the fact that he’s so sleep deprived he’s losing pieces of time and he’s so temperamental that Steve won't dare venture into his line of sight.

“I appreciate the thought,” he starts with because at least that much is true, “but we got a case and I'm gonna be working late chasing leads.” The lie tastes like acid on his tongue but if Rachel suspects anything she doesn’t let on.

“Well,” she sounds surprised that he rejected her offer. He doesn’t blame her since he’s all but begged to have more time with Charlie lately, “maybe when you solve your case.”

“Yeah, maybe,” he agrees and hopes that once they solve the case the nightmares will stop too. There’s a long silence over the line before Rachel says goodbye and hangs up.

He cradles his head in his hands, groaning in frustration and just wanting this day to be over.

“How are you holding up?” Steve asks from his doorway, startling him out of his little pity party. He wonders how long Steve has been there, if Steve heard him lie to Rachel, but if he did he’s not letting on. Once the panic dissipates, his immediate urge is to bite back, say something that will get Steve to just leave him alone but he swallows the comment down.

“I’m just tired is all,” he downplays.

“Listen, we’re not getting anywhere on these two murders. Chin can’t find anything to link the two women, and our political angle dried up. I think we need to call in help,” Steve admits, sitting down in the chair next to him. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Kehale watching them but he does his best to ignore him.

“You want to call in help?” He can’t quite believe his ears that Steve is admitting to a shortcoming.

“Well, all we have to go on is the similar method so-”

“You want to call in Alicia.” It’s not a question, he can see that Steve’s already made up his mind and is ready to defend his decision but he holds up a hand to stop him before he can get anything out, “You’re right. Go make the call.”

“I’m sorry,” Steve asks, eyes wide like he doesn’t quite believe what he’s hearing, “Did you just say I was right? Hold on, say it once more so I can record it,” Steve moves like he’s going to pull his phone out of his pocket but Danny shoves his arm, laughing for the first time all day. “Hey, come over tonight,” Steve asks and he doesn’t have the heart or the willpower to say no. At least if he does have a nightmare at Steve’s house he won’t run the risk of scaring his kids too.

\---

There’s an annoying sound ringing through his head, pulling him out of his sleep with it’s urgentness and dragging him reluctantly into the very early morning. As the world begins to focus, becoming less of a bluish-gray blur and turning into the defined shapes of Steve’s bedroom furniture, he realizes that it was Steve’s phone ringing that woke him. Rolling onto his back, he sees Steve sitting on the edge of the bed, speaking in hushed tones to whoever’s on the other end of the line. He crosses his fingers and prays that it’s not the governor.

He’s not awake enough yet to parse Steve’s whispers into physical words but he recognizes his tone, knows that it means nothing good.

Over his time at Five-0 he has learned that, just like how far they need to hike to a crime scene, there is a direct correlation between how bad a case is and the hour that they’re called in. The earlier the call comes, the worse the case is going to be. The more mundane cases, and he loathes that he can now use the word mundane to categorize _any_ of the cases that they work on, wait for a decent hour, after the team has had time to do their morning routines and maybe even grab a second cup of coffee. The bad cases, the ones that leave them looking over their shoulder, too afraid to go to sleep because of what they’ve seen, are the ones that come calling at three in the morning.

Steve hangs up with a murmured “We’ll be right there,” and looks over his shoulder apologetically. “They found another body. They think it’s related to our case,” Steve says, patting his thigh and standing up, “You take the shower first.”

He takes a moment to watch as Steve walks naked over to the closet, savoring the image before sighing and sitting up, already missing the warmth of Steve curled around him in the bed. Blowing out a tired breath- a couple hours of sleep isn’t enough to get rid of the constant exhaustion he’s been feeling- he swings his feet out onto the floor. Ending what will probably be the last peaceful moment that they have for days he glances over at the clock just as it ticks over to 3:23 AM.

\---

Steve drives them out towards Wilhelmina Rise, parking in front of an upscale house that looks like even if Danny won the lottery he still wouldn’t be able to afford to park his car there. The entire thing is white and glass and he can see straight through the house and down the valley to Diamond Head. Even with the crime scene techs walking around photographing it, trampling all over the pristine lawn in pursuit of evidence, he immediately recognizes the scene. His pulse jumps and his breath quickens as he remembers the house from his dream days ago, as well as killing the pretty woman that he knows is going to be dead in the kitchen.

The house reflects the red and blue flashes from the patrol cars, and even from a hundred feet away at the side of the road he can see where there’s a group of people standing around what must be their dead body. When they get inside he sees that everything is white and shiny metal, the living room's walls reaching up at least twenty feet to the ceiling. It’s all eerily familiar.

Just like he dreamt, their victim is in the kitchen, though it’s obvious that the fight that ended her life didn’t start there, and just like the other crime scenes, there’s a trail of destruction leading away from the front door and through the living room. Broken glass from the coffee table, overturned decorations, pieces of paper littering the floor, all splattered with the few occasional drops of blood. As messy as the scene in the living room was, the kitchen is the complete opposite. The only thing in the room suggesting something nefarious happened is the dead body next to the kitchen island. Just like last time, Noelani is already there, doing her examinations.

“What have you been able to find?” Steve asks her in lieu of a greeting. She doesn’t seem to mind his abruptness.

“Much like the previous cases, this victim was manually strangled,” Noelani tells them, “I can’t say this with any certainty yet, but I estimate the time of death to be between three and four days ago.”

Steve asks her another question but he can’t hear over the sound of his heart racing. He had the dream of killing this woman three nights ago, the same night that she actually died. He can feel the panic attack starting, the tightness in his chest a telltale sign, and knows that he has to push it down. He cannot have a panic attack at the crime scene, not when there’s no conceivable reason for him to be so affected. None besides what his own mind is so obviously trying to tell him.

“Were there any witnesses?” He blurts out to get his mind on something other than the dreams, his voice sounding too strained to his ears. Too late he realizes that he interrupted Steve but the responding officer answers him anyway with a definitive no. “A house made out of glass and no one sees anything?” he asks, spreading his hands wide and indicating the full-length windows just beside them.

“It’s a pretty upscale property,” the officer explains to him, “people pay a lot of money to live somewhere without a lot of street traffic. Plus, the house is set so far back from the road that most of the view is obscured by the hedges. You’d have to be looking directly at the house to see anything inside.”

He opens his mouth to say something to the officer, he doesn’t even know what, but Steve gets his attention by putting a hand on his arm first. “Can we talk?” His voice is pitched low, like he’s asking a question, but they both know it’s an order. Steve doesn’t wait for his answer before he’s heading towards the back of the house. He follows Steve across the room and out the patio door, stopping just at the end of the lanai.

“Are you okay?” Steve asks him, looking painfully sincere.

“Of course I'm okay,” he snaps and closes his eyes. _People who are okay don’t snap at their partners_ , he tells himself. _People who are okay also don’t dream about murders before anyone knows about them_ , his brain unhelpfully reminds him. “I’m just tired is all.”

Steve gives him an appraising look, trying to figure out if he’s telling the truth or not. He must look more miserable than he thought because Steve accepts it. “You haven’t been sleeping well lately.” It’s a statement, not a question, and he doesn’t bother to deny it. “You’ve been under a lot of pressure lately with IA and worrying about telling everyone about us. This case certainly isn’t helping any of us. We can’t really do anything until the labs open and Noelani finishes her autopsy so why don’t you go back home and try to rest some more.”

He wants to protest but he’s so tired that not even the threat of nightmares dissuades him. The thought of getting out of this house also give him some small comfort. He nods his head okay and Steve takes his hand, squeezing it lightly before turning it upwards and dropping the car keys in his palm.

“I’ll catch a ride back with one of the other officers, go get some rest,” Steve says and if he weren’t so tired he would haul Steve down to a reasonable height and kiss him breathless in thanks. As it is, he’s almost dead on his feet so he settles for patting a hand on Steve’s arm and heading back through the house, making sure not to notice any of the details of the scene.

\---

He dreams of being attacked, about invisible hands grabbing him and dragging him into the darkness lying just ahead of him. He fights and screams for help but the hands only grip him harder, holding onto him so tight that he’s sure he’s breaking apart under their strong hold. He loses his voice when a cold hand covers his mouth and then he starts to panic, twisting and pulling just to get the slightest bit of freedom but the hands don’t let go.

Just when he thinks it’s all but over the screaming starts. The first shout almost makes him jump out of his skin it’s so loud. The wailing reverberates through him for a couple seconds until another voice joins it, this time he can make out the word ‘no’ being repeated over and over by another woman. It keeps repeating, high-pitched and terrified as another voice joins in and there’s a trio of women screaming. Shouting at him.

He can feel their terror weighing him down, making his skin crawl each time the chorus starts again until he feels like he can no longer breath from the panic. The hands continue to hold him down, a constant pressure on his limbs. When he feels like he can take no more, he wakes up gasping for breath.

He sits up on his bed, his clothes soaked through with cold sweat and his sheets twisted and tangled around his legs. He takes a couple ragged breaths before he’s bolting for the bathroom, feeling sick. The wave of nausea subsides almost as soon as it came but he rests over the sink for a while longer, counting out his breaths to calm himself down. When he tries to wipe away some of the sweat from his brow he sees his hands are shaking and he clenches them into fists to make the tremors stop.

When he finally feels like his body is under control again he slumps down, resting his head on the cool porcelain of the sink and trying to banish the dream from his memory. He’s infinitely grateful that Eric got called into work early and was leaving just as he was getting home. He can pass off a nightmare but this was so much worse than anything he’s dreamt yet.

Eventually, he pushes himself back up, catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror and startling at how bad he looks. He knows he hasn’t been getting much sleep lately, but this reflection looks like a ghost. Ashen skin, sunken cheeks, dark bags under his eyes, and the bedhead doesn’t do anything to help his look. He wipes away tear streaks from his face and heads back into his bedroom, stopping and changing course as soon as he sees the bed.

His bedroom looks intimidating now, the shadows in the corners too dark, the sheets on the bed too confining, and he decides against trying to get a few more hours sleep in there. Instead, he grabs one of his pillows and heads into the living room where the glow of the rising sun is just starting to illuminate the room.

\---

He gives Danny until noon, hoping that eight more hours of sleep will help him feel better, but if anything Danny looks even worse than when Steve last saw him that morning. In short, Danny looks like hell. His clothes are pristine and his hair is coiffed as usual, but everything else about his appearance is haggard looking and it sets off alarm bells in Steve’s head. He’s known for a couple weeks now that something has been wrong with Danny, but he’s been hoping that Danny would bring whatever it was up on his own.

Danny’s been avoiding him, choosing more and more to go to his own house instead of Steve’s place, and he knows that Danny lied about the case to get out of having Grace and Charlie last weekend. That would have been concern enough, but Danny’s been coming into work late, his attention has been drifting and he’s either lashing out at the team or not saying anything at all, and Steve can’t figure out what could cause his behavior.

The logical choice would be that it’s the case that’s bothering him, but they’ve gone through things a million times more violent and closer to home than these murders and Danny has never reacted like this. So if it’s not the case, his only other guess is the one other new thing in their lives since Danny started acting strangely. Them revealing their relationship.

He’s praying that that’s not it, that Danny isn’t second guessing their relationship and just doesn’t know how to tell him. God, he hopes that it isn’t that. He’s just gotten used to having Danny and if Danny decides that he doesn’t want them to be together anymore Steve’s not sure he would be able to handle it. Not dating anymore would be hard enough, but Danny would probably want a clean break. Cut off ties, go back to HPD, and that would be torture. Five-0 without Danny just wouldn’t work. As much as he likes to complain about them all, they need Danny just as much as he knows Danny needs them.

He wants to ask Danny what’s wrong with him, lock them in his office and not leave until they hash everything out, but he’s afraid that if he does Danny will clam up again. So he settles for watching him drink a cup of coffee strong enough to melt the spoon he’s stirring it with and tells him that Alicia is on her way over to help them profile their murders.

\---

“Strangulation is about control, it’s an intensely personal act to take someone's life with your own hands,” Alicia tells the team.

There’s a tense atmosphere around the offices as she gives her profile. Governor Mahoe is worried that this could be another serial killer and wants the case wrapped up quickly but with no leads for the team to follow all her constant calls have done is set them on edge. Officer Kehale is still following him and Danny around; he suspects it’s more to be an annoyance than for any actual need to observe them longe. The barely veiled contempt towards Alicia by the rest of the team is only making the matter worse and he doesn’t know what he can do to lighten the mood.

Despite the fact that Alicia has hung out with the team on quite a few occasions now, she hasn’t really warmed up to anybody besides him. Kono, Chin, and Lou don’t like her methods or her impulsiveness; it’s one thing for the team to bend the rules but Alicia is a private citizen, and it shows in their reluctance to involve her. Danny probably has the same reasons for disliking Alicia but Steve can tell that there’s more to it. He never did tell him about Alicia’s attempted date but he knows that Danny at least suspects Alicia has motivations for hanging around other than catching a killer. In other circumstances he wouldn’t bring her in while the team is so strung out, but he’s afraid that if they wait any longer they’ll just get more bodies. So he gave Alicia the case files and access to their server and tried to keep any contact between her and the rest of the team at a minimum.

“The lack of evidence suggests that there’s a certain level of organization to these murders. The killer probably observed the victims for a while, made sure that they were alone and wouldn’t be disturbed while the murder took place. The fact that the women let the killer into their house means they weren’t threatened by the killer. They might look weak or have a badge or uniform, something that makes them appear harmless or trustworthy to these women so that they wouldn’t be afraid letting a stranger into their home. While they might look harmless, it takes quite a bit of strength to hold a struggling person down and keep them down, so the killer probably works out regularly.”

“But why kill these women in the first place?” Lou asks, “I mean, we haven’t found a single thing to tie them together, they don’t even look alike. Why would our guy kill these women in particular?”

“Like I said, strangulation is intensely personal, whatever motivation the killer had was probably motivated by these women's actions. Maybe they bumped into the killer on the sidewalk, maybe they said the wrong thing, whatever it was threatened the killer in some way and this is their retribution. The motivation doesn’t have to be logical, it just has to make sense to the killer.”

“So can you tell us what the killer looks like? Something we can look for in surveillance?” Kono asks.

“The killer is white, probably between their mid thirties to late forties, somewhere around the same age as the victims. Sarah Miller and Jessica Tomey were middle class but Alani Keahi was upper class, we trust people that we subconsciously identify with so the killer is probably middle class but they have nice things, maybe a fancy car or they dress well. They’re also probably a local, they know their way around enough to follow the victims into close knit communities without raising suspicion so they’ll have to be a little bit familiar with the area,” the room falls silent as Alicia finishes her profile. With no suspects to begin with, it’s not much to run with but it’s better than nothing. Or at least he keeps telling himself that.

He thanks Alicia, walking her to the front door before he leaves her to go back to the team. “Okay, let's start looking at the surveillance footage that we have, look for anyone that fits that description,” he says with more enthusiasm than he feels.

“A white, fit, middle class guy in his forties?” Lou scoffs, “That’ll be easy.”

“It’s a place to start,” he snaps and the team sheepishly follows his orders. Chin, Kono, and Lou all hunkering down with their own segments of the various security footage tapes they’ve managed to get of their victims. He’s about to head into his own office to update the governor when he notices Danny hesitating, still staring at the pictures of their victims on the screens.

“You okay?” he asks, coming in close enough to whisper. Danny flinches when he speaks, like he hadn’t heard Steve approaching, and turns to face him. He can see that Danny looks uneasy but he darts his eyes to the team before giving him a forced smile.

“Fine,” Danny says, walking off, and he pushes down the rising fear that something is very wrong.

\---

They get a day and a half of uninterrupted time looking for their killer before his phone rings with a new case. Unfortunately, crime on the island doesn’t stop just because leads dry up. Governor Mahoe makes it very clear that their killer is still a top priority, but a shipment of military weapons scheduled to be destroyed was just stolen. The team tries, and fails, not to look relieved that something new has popped up. None of them like it when a case goes cold, but they’ve been banging their head against a wall for so long that they all need the reprieve. Who knows, maybe some time on a different case will allow them to come back with a new perspective and they’ll find something that they couldn’t before.

Their case, despite being one of the ballsier ones the team has had to deal with, is actually embarrassingly simple to solve. Bullets recovered from the trucks that had been robbed matched to cases involving a new drug ring trying to get a foothold on the island. When they searched for buildings the dealers were known to operate out of they had a very short list of places to check out. A quick stop to Kamekona for some information and a couple hours sifting through traffic cams looking for cars matching the description the soldiers gave them, and they have an actionable lead on their stolen guns.

They have to wait until the afternoon for a warrant to come through and as soon as Chin calls to say he has the paperwork, they’re gearing up. He casts a worried glance over to Danny, trying to keep his examination subtle as he tries to determine if Danny is fit enough to go on the raid. Steve can tell that he’s been tired all day, if the amount of coffee Danny’s been drowning in is any indication, but other than the occasional yawn he can’t see anything actually wrong with his partner. He knows that if he suggests that Danny sit this one out or take a step back he’ll just get chewed out and Danny will still be next to him leading the team. So he keeps his mouth shut but doesn’t ignore the way Danny’s hands fumble as he’s securing his tac vest.

\---

“We got eight people showing up on the infrared,” Lou’s voice comes through his earpiece. He, Danny, and three SWAT members are crouched beside the front entrance of the warehouse. Kono, Chin, and Lou are covering the sides and the back with the rest of the SWAT team, all ready and waiting for his go ahead, “Looks like they’re all in the center of the room but there’s a lot of junk in there. Plenty of places to hide out.”

“Copy that, Lou,” he says before addressing the team, relaying to everyone that there are eight unfriendlies, all potentially carrying military-grade heavy artillery, and to keep their heads up. When he gets the all good signal from each entry team he gives the go ahead and they enter the building, Danny kicking open the door for him and letting the rest of the unit enter before he follows in the rear.

There’s yelling and gunfire immediately, though he can’t tell who fired the first shots. He takes out two guys as soon as he rounds a stack of crates and can see the warehouse floor, then provides cover fire so SWAT can move further into the room. He feels Danny pat him on the back and then he’s moving again, rounding crates to try to find anyone trying to hide out behind them. The gunfire quickly peters out, changing from constant noise to the occasional burst as more and more of the drug cartel is taken out.

He’s cleared the last row of crates when he sees something streak past him, raising his gun and following the motion, stopping himself just before he fires when he realizes that the movement was from Danny. He spins around to see where his partner was heading to see that Danny has one of the remaining gangbangers on the ground. He watches Danny take down and disarm the guy but his relief quickly turns to fear when he sees Danny keep landing blow after blow to the guys face even after he’s been incapacitated.

Before he makes the conscious decision, he’s running across the warehouse and shouting Danny’s name in horror. Danny doesn’t let up and Steve has to grab him by the handle on his vest, pulling him roughly backwards and off the guy, barely avoiding Danny’s fist as he lashes out at him. He lets go of Danny as quick as he can and jumps back, knocking into a row of shelving as Danny lands on his ass in front of him. Just like that, it’s like a spell’s been broken and Steve can see as a fog leaves Danny’s eyes and he realizes what he’s just done.

“Danny,” he asks quietly, the gunfire has finally ended but his voice is still swallowed by the sounds of the team moving around and securing the warehouse.

“I-” Danny looks horrified, his glance darting over to the other side of the warehouse where Steve had just been. It doesn’t take him long to put together that the guy now lying in a puddle of his own blood at Steve’s feet had his gun on him and if Danny hadn’t acted he would have had a clear shot. He could be dead right now if not for Danny.

The thought is sobering, but not as much as the sight of Danny sitting on the dirty warehouse floor and looking so lost. “Danny,” he tries again, pushing away the sick feeling from seeing Danny like this and kneeling so that they’re eye to eye, “What happened?”

“He had his gun on you,” Danny says, his voice is distant and now Steve can see that Danny’s hands are shaking where they’re resting on the cement floor.

“Danny, you don’t _do_ this,” he doesn’t look over to the unconscious form next to them but his meaning is clear enough. _You don’t lose control like this._ Danny opens his mouth to reply but whatever he was going to say is cut off when Chin calls for him. He gives Danny a once over, deciding that he’s not going to lose control now and, not wanting anyone else to see Danny like this, leaves him to go see what Chin wanted. Just before he leaves the secluded aisle, he tells Danny that he’ll be right back and to wait there.

It only takes him a minute to get the team sorted out on transporting their suspects and cataloging the evidence but when he goes back to the aisle he finds that Danny is long gone.

\---

When he returns to the Palace, riding with Lou because Danny left in the Camaro, he has to hide his panic when Danny isn’t there. His rifle and tac vest have been locked back up but the man himself is nowhere to be seen.

“Your boy skip out on the paperwork?” Lou jokes but the confirmation that Danny is gone just makes it that much harder to breathe.

“The paperwork can wait till tomorrow,” he says just as Chin and Kono walk in, “We’ve had a long day, everyone go home. This can all wait until morning.”

Everyone looks suspicious but, not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth, everyone puts their gear away and says their goodbyes. “Steve, is Danny okay?” Kono asks, coming up to him as he’s locking up the gun case. She looks sincerely worried and when he glances at Chin and Lou waiting by the doors he sees her concern mirrored on their faces.

“I don’t know,” he answers honestly.

\---

Lou drops him off at his house, because it took until he was standing in the empty parking lot to realize that he didn’t have a car, and he doesn’t try to hide his relief when he sees the Camaro sitting in his driveway next to his truck.

“Steve,” Lou says as soon as he has his hand on the door, “Listen man, it’s pretty clear that Danny’s going through something right now, and I’m not gonna ask for details but- I just want to say that we’re all gonna support you two through _whatever_ this is.” He clasps Lou on the arm and says as sincerely as he can, _Thank you_ before he gets out of the SUV. He waves goodbye as Lou turns around and drives away and takes a deep breath to brace himself before entering through the front door.

The house is nearly dark when he walks into the living room, the only light on in the entire downstairs is the end table lamp that casts a pale yellow glow over the room. Danny’s sitting on the couch, his head bowed, and in the low light the only word that Steve can think of to describe him is broken. It makes something in his stomach twist uncomfortably but he pushes through the feeling.

Danny doesn’t react when he closes the door, arms the security system and then takes a seat on the ottoman, afraid that if he gets any closer he’ll spook Danny. The minutes stretch out as they sit there until, in a moment telling to just how badly Danny must be feeling, or maybe how bad _he’s_ feeling, it’s Steve who cracks and talks first.

“You wanna tell me what happened earlier?”

He tries to keep his voice calm so that Danny won’t take this as an argument rather than the conversation that Steve wants it to be. His words get lost in the silence of the room and he continues to sit patiently, knowing with absolute certainty that he can wait Danny out if he has to. He doesn’t have to wait long before he sees Danny close his eyes and take a deep breath.

“I don’t know.” Danny’s voice sounds too much like it did after Colombia, scrubbed raw and quiet, and it makes the knot in Steve’s stomach twist even tighter with the memory.

“Danny...” he tries again but he doesn’t know what to say. Turns out he doesn’t have to because no sooner has his name left Steve’s lips than Danny snaps.

“What do you want me to say, Steve? I lost it today, okay? I saw that asshole point that gun at you and I lost it and if you hadn’t pulled me off of him I probably would have killed him.”

Danny’s finally looking at him now and Steve sees that his eyes are hard with remembered anger and fear. Then, Danny breathes out and his whole demeanor changes. Steve watches as Danny deflates right in front of him, losing the anger and the hard edges until only the vulnerable pieces remain. Still Steve doesn’t speak, knowing that if he pushes Danny now he’ll say the wrong thing and Danny will tense back up, become combative, and Steve doesn’t want to fight.

He doesn’t have to wait long before he hears Danny whisper, “I can’t do this anymore.”

The words make him feel sick, dredging up the anxieties about their relationship that he’s tried too hard to keep locked away. He has to take his own deep breath before he asks, “This as in… us?”

“No!” Danny shouts like he can’t get the word out quick enough and the sick feeling starts to go away, “God, no, I… the last few weeks with you, it feels like you’re one of the only good things I have right now and I can’t lose that. Please,” Danny croaks out, tears in his eyes and Steve moves closer. Danny leans into him when he puts his arm around him, resting his chin on the top of Danny’s head, and waits for Danny to calm down.

“What do you mean then, Danny, because you’ve been pulling away from me. From everybody, and I just can’t figure out why. You never come over anymore, you never let me go over to your place. Danny, you gave up a night with your kids! Seven years I’ve known you and you’ve never given up time with your kids without a good reason and for the life of me I can’t think of one. You have to tell me, Danny. I’m not like you, I can’t look at you and know what you’re thinking.”

He knows he seems desperate, clutching onto Danny like if he loses his grip just a little bit Danny might leave him, but he’s so scared that he’s going to lose Danny that he can’t bring himself to care. He finally got to have Danny, all of Danny, but now this behavior, this division between them, it’s worse than anything he’s felt before.

Danny pushes away from him, trying to put some distance between them and his arms tighten instinctively before he lets go enought that Danny can look him in the eye. “I think I’m the killer,” Danny tells him with a terrified conviction.

\---

Saying the words out loud feels like lifting a burden off his shoulders. For weeks he’s been carrying this around with him and now, finally, some of the pressure is gone. “Is that why you’ve been acting so weird?” Steve asks. He looks confused, which is a lot better than the desperate look he did have, but it’s not anywhere in the neighborhood of good so he does what he does best and talks.

It feels silly now, saying everything out loud but a little voice in the back of his mind reminds him that there is _evidence_ , and that he can’t go through this on his own anymore. He needs to let someone in or he really is going to go crazy, trying to find motivation in every one of his actions, walking around on eggshells in his own house like he’s going to round a corner and see ghosts waiting for him.

“Just hear me out,” he takes Steve’s hands to stop him from objecting and he obediently shuts his mouth, “Jessica Tomey always flirted with you when you guys were together. Don’t deny it, I saw it with my own eyes on more than one occasion. Alani Keahi was the woman you bumped into when we were leaving the restaurant on our date and she felt you up so much I was wondering if I needed to give you two some space. I fit the profile. White, middle class, late thirties, has a badge and a fancy car, Alicia listed all those things. I’ve been missing pieces of time, not like I was asleep or just forgot, I have _no memory_ of some nights. I get home, have a beer, and then nothing until morning and it’s happening for longer and longer periods.”

“Danny, there’s a thousand guys in Honolulu alone that fit that description. The missing time could just be stress. This case, the observation by IA, we’re both still recovering from the liver transplant. You haven’t been sleeping well and we’re running ourselves ragged at work and it’s just catching up to you. You’re not a murderer, Danny,” Steve seems so sure of his words that he’s almost relieved by Steve’s absolute belief in him, but it’s not all true and he reminds Steve of that, “I murdered Reyes.”

“That’s different.”

Steve isn’t looking at him like he’s crazy anymore but he can tell that he hasn’t convinced him so he continues. “There’s more. The techs found a hair on Jessica Tomey. My hair. Eric marked it as a mistake, he figured that it must have fallen on her when I checked out the body, but I never got that close to her, Steve. There’s no way that it could have gotten from me to her and… and I swear I remember it.”

“Remember what?” Steve’s voice is quiet, like he’s trying not to spook him and he’s horrified to realize that this his how Steve speaks to scared witnesses.

“Killing them. I hear their screams at night, Steve, I can tell you exactly how they died because I watched the terror in their eyes as they took their last breaths.” He has to wipe away a tear from his cheek when he finishes and he can’t bring himself to meet Steve’s gaze. Steve reaches out for him again and it’s a small miracle that he doesn’t flinch away before Steve pulls him close.

“You’re not the one doing this, Danny, okay? I don’t care what you think, I know you and I know that you could never have murdered those girls… but, if you truly believe that you’re involved in this then we can look into it,” Steve acquiesces and Danny feels like he could cry that one way or another they’re going to figure out what’s happening to him, “Tomorrow when we get to the office we’ll see if we can find a link between you and the victims. I’m not saying that I think there will be one, but if it will make you feel better, we can check it out. First, though, we’re going to get some sleep.”

Steve’s tone leaves no room for argument and he doesn’t even try to resist as Steve takes him by the hand and leads him to the bedroom. It’s been so long since he’s last shared a bed with Steve that he almost forgot how comforting it was to have Steve wrapped around him, holding him close.

\---

Danny fell asleep the moment his head hit the pillow and Steve was reluctant to wake him from what was probably the best night’s rest he’s had in weeks. He made a promise though, and he knew that Danny would be more angry about not running the investigation than losing a few more hours sleep.

Danny grumbles as he wakes up, burrowing down into the warmth of the blankets before accepting that he has to get ready. He’s already showered and gotten ready so he leaves Danny to get dressed while he goes downstairs to start their coffee. Not long after him, Danny comes downstairs wearing the same dirty clothes that he had on during the raid.

“I need to go to my place and change,” Danny says, taking a sip of his coffee.

“Maybe you should just start keeping your clothes here,” Steve offers. He can see an edge of panic in Danny’s eyes but Danny can’t hide the smile tugging at the edges of his lips.

“Maybe I should,” Danny says after a while, finishing his coffee, “I’ll meet you at the office in a little bit,” Danny says and walks out the door while he’s still frozen by Danny’s easy acceptance of his offer to move in.

\---

He hadn’t expected anyone else to be at the office yet, but when he pulls into the parking lot he sees that, except for Danny, he’s the last one there. He’s walking up the steps of the Palace when his phone rings, the caller ID telling him it’s Chin who’s calling.

“Yeah, Chin?” he asks, walking into the building.

“Steve, where are you?” There's an edge of panic to his voice that has Steve increasing his pace.

“I just walked into the Palace.”

“Get up here, we found something,” Chin says before the line goes dead. He shoves his phone in his pocket and jogs up the steps, bursting into the office to see Chin, Kono, and Lou all surrounding the computer table.

“What’s up?” he joins them, seeing surveillance footage of all their victims displayed on the screen.

“We have a suspect,” Kono says.

“I got thinking about it and I realized that we’re searching through this footage all wrong,” Chin explains to him.

“Alicia said that the killer probably had been following the victims to get them when they were alone,” Lou reminds him.

“So I set up a facial recognition software to look for reoccurring faces in the footage we have,” Chin continues, “We just got a hit.”

“You found our guy?” he asks incredulous. There’s a tiny part of him that’s praying they don’t see Danny in any of those pictures. It’s not that he actually believes that Danny’s the killer, but he had been so convinced and with evidence, even if it is circumstantial, it had been hard for Steve to brush everything off as a coincidence.

“Not _guy_ ,” Kono says, swiping her hand across the table to throw some images on the screen. It takes him a second to find the faces that the computer had recognized but when he does his heart stops. There, in the background of multiple photos with each of their victims, is Alicia.

“There’s got to be a mistake,” he says because there’s no way that _Alicia_ is their killer, “she gave us our profile.”

“She’s in more photo’s than these, these ones are just the best angles,” Chin says, “we all assumed that our killer was a man, but Alicia fits the description to a T.”

“Think about it, boss, what’s less threatening than an unassuming woman coming up to your house looking for help?” Kono says.

“There were reports of a disabled vehicle matching Alicia’s car by Alani Keahi’s house the night she died,” Lou says, “Alicia could have pulled up in front of the house, popped the hood, and gone to the house pretending that she needed to call for help.”

The pieces start to slot together in his mind. Alicia followed each of the women, a car matching hers was reported near the last crime scene, she has the knowledge and ability to track and kill a victim without leaving evidence. But _why?_

“Where did the first victim work again? Sarah Miller?” he asks, worried that he already knows the answer.

Chin types in something quick to pull up the file and skims it again, “She was working a couple of jobs, receptionist at the country club, waitress at Central City Lounge, waitress at-”

“Stop,” he interrupts Chin as the other shoe drops. “Sarah was our waitress when Alicia took me out for drinks.” He hadn’t been paying attention, just trying to end the night as quickly as he could, but it’s the only thing that makes sense. All the victims flirted with him, or at least did things that could have been misinterpreted as flirting. Danny had that much right, he just had the wrong who.

“Danny!” he blurts, realizing that if Alicia really is targeting people who tried to flirt with him that Danny could be in danger.

He pulls out his phone and calls Danny, swearing when the phone rings through to voicemail before dialing again, hoping that Danny is just in the shower or changing and couldn’t get to his phone. The team is watching him anxiously, waiting for him to explain to them what conclusion he just came to as the phone rings through again. He orders Chin to track the GPS on it, calling Danny one more time.

“The phone’s at Alicia’s house,” Chin tells him gravely, once the search has completed.

He doesn’t think before he orders the team, “Grab your gear.”

\---

He wakes to the sound of his phone ringing, grumbling and trying to reach for it to shut it off when he realizes that his hands are bound together. Adrenaline shoots through him and he’s instantly awake, taking in his surroundings and trying to get free from the zip ties binding his hands together.

“I wouldn’t do that.” A voice comes from behind him and he turns to see Alicia leaning lazily against her kitchen counter. His phone starts ringing again, vibrating angrily on the kitchen island but she ignores it.

“What are you doing?” he asks, trying to figure out what happened, how he got here, _why_ he’s here.

“Tying up loose ends,” Alicia says calmly, pushing off from the counter and coming towards him. She looks menacing, nothing like the woman that he’s seen so many times before and he feels uneasy the closer she comes to him. His brain is working slowly, caught in the haze of what he’s realizing must be the drugs that Alicia knocked him out with, and it’s difficult to focus on anything but the woman in front of him. At least some of his confusion must show on his face because Alicia crouches down in front of him, tutting like his Nonna used to do when he got in fights. “You still haven’t figured it out?” Alicia’s tone is mocking, “I’m your killer, _Detective Williams_ ,” her tone reeks of contempt and he reels at her confession.

“You?” he asks as his phone starts ringing again. If it’s Steve calling, and it most likely is, he’s probably already had Chin track his GPS and the team will be on their way over any minute. All he has to do is wait it out.

“Don’t think they’re going to save you,” Alicia tells him once she notices where his attention has been drawn, “You think I would bring your phone here if it wasn’t part of my plan? I _want_ Five-0 to come here.”

“You’re jealous,” he says. He had figured that Alicia had feelings for Steve in one way or another but he never imagined that she would have been capable of taking out her jealousy like this.

“Please,” she scoffs, “jealousy has nothing to do with this. This is about _power_. Control over Steve, over Five-0, hell, having a direct line to the governor herself. I have spent months planning my way to a position where Five-0 needs me, getting everyone right where I want them to be, and you think that i’m doing it because you and Steve are sleeping together? Don’t flatter yourself.”

“You murdered those women because you wanted a position on Five-0?” He asks, stunned.

“I didn’t start with just those women,” she says, sickly sweet and things start to click into place.

“Dr. Gray,” he says and Alicia gives him a cruel smile.

“So you’re not just a pretty face,” she says, grabbing him by the chin before pushing him away and moving back towards the kitchen, “I had to get Five-0’s attention somehow, using Dr. Gray was the easiest solution.”

“I always thought we were missing something. If Gray wanted to kill people why would she go after other serial killers? It would have taken time to find them, to talk them into doing those murders for her. If you wanted power, what better way to get it than by manipulating people to kill for you? And you have plenty of motivation to want serial killers dead. After all, that’s how you got your daughter killed.” He has to keep her talking, the more she talks the better a chance the team will find them in time.

“Don’t talk about her,” Alicia warns, dark and dangerous so Danny presses on.

“That’s what caused all this, isn’t it? The Bureau kicked you out after you lost your only child to a serial killer so you decided to take matters into your own hands. Then what? You found out you liked manipulating people? Liked getting in their heads and making them do what you wanted? Making them think that it was their own choice? You got Dr. Gray to kill those people and you let her believe that it was all her idea, her own past making her a killer. I should have known there was something wrong with your story when you found that body in your bed. How exactly did Dr. Gray murder that man in your house and dump him next to you without you noticing anything? Unless you helped her.”

He tests his bindings but they hold fast, so he keeps talking, “And then when we asked you for help you just had all the right answers. It was Dr. Gray who told you about Yao’s unofficial investigation, wasn’t it? There wouldn’t have been a record of that, and if there was you wouldn’t have been able to get access to it so quickly. Gray was feeding you information and you were dishing it out to Steve whenever you wanted, you had him eating out of your hand and you _loved_ it.”

Alicia pauses for a second and he can tell he’s hit the nail on the head.

“I just have one question, why murder those women?”

“They were a means to an end. Originally, I just wanted to get on Steve’s good side, get him to trust me so that I could convince him to get me on your team, but then you came in and I had to adjust my plans. Steve wouldn’t trust me if you were still there whispering doubts into his ear so I had to get rid of you, make Steve worry for your own sanity.”

“You’re the reason I’m losing time?” he asks.

“And the nightmares,” she says proudly, “I just had to do the groundwork and let your mind fill in the little blanks. It wasn’t that hard, the brain is very susceptible to influence after all. A little bit of ketamine to put you in a dream like state, and then I just had some fun. Made you watch videos of me murdering those _poor_ women, made you listen to their screams. Your brain just took the clues I gave it and made you think that it was you who was committing those murders.” Alicia’s looming over him now and she pushes him back down onto the floor with a firm shove. Without his hands to brace himself he lands hard, wincing when his head hits the hardwood floor, “Poor little fucked up Danny Williams. It wasn’t even that hard to make you think you were a murderer.”

“So what now?” he asks through clenched teeth, pushing down the fury that’s trying to bubble over at her admission that she _drugged him_ . She broke into his house, drugged him and forced him to watch those women die. She invaded his space, his _mind_ , put his team at risk, his children at risk just so she could have control over Steve? “How do you expect Steve to trust you if you attack me?”

“That’s the beauty of it though, _you’re_ attacking _me_.” He watches as Alicia pulls a gun out from behind her and points it at him. “You’ve been acting agitated lately Danny, lashing out. You came over here angry, you attacked me, we struggled.” Alicia kicks over the coffee table next to him and he flinches, “and I had to kill you.”

She pushes one of the chairs away, the feet scraping against the hardwood floor, before standing over him again. When she speaks again her voice is soft and quivering, fake tears filling her eyes.  “It was self defense, Steve. I had to kill him.”

Distantly, he hears his phone ringing again but the noise it drowned out by the sound of blood rushing through his ears. _This is it_ , he thinks faintly, this is how he’s going to die. Murdered and framed for crimes he didn’t commit.

Alicia cocks her gun and he rolls to the side just as two gunshots ring out. Pain shoots through his shoulder and he cries out in surprise. He’s blinded by the agony of the bullet ripping through his skin and hitting bone and he knows that he’s a sitting duck for the next shot. Only the next shot never comes. He can hear footsteps pounding heavily around the room and then Steve’s face floats above him, looking terrified as his hands roam over Danny’s body to make sure he’s okay. He winces when Steve cuts the zip tie around his wrists and hauls him in for a bone crushing hug. His shoulder protests the move but he doesn’t have the heart to tell Steve.

“I thought she killed you.” Danny can hear the wetness of Steve’s voice as he whispers into his ear. He braves the pain, only wincing a little when he wraps his arms around Steve as best he can. They’re both sitting but Steve is still a giant and his tac vest only makes him that much bigger so it’s awkward. He ends up wrapping one arm around Steve’s waist and the other around his arm burying his face into the crook of Steve’s neck and losing control, letting Steve hold him as he breaks down.

He’s been framed. Someone that he thought was Steve’s friend framed him just for something as stupid as influence. He tries to hold the frustrated, scared tears back but they fall anyway. He cries for yet another betrayal of Steve’s trust. He cries for the women who lost their lives for no reason other than he’s suspicious by nature and they were an easy target. He cries for being kidnapped and shot, because his own mind was invaded, twisted into something that even he could no longer trust. Steve holds him tight as he tries to control himself, rubbing a soothing hand across his back and whispering comforting words into his ear.

Steve lets him pull away once he has himself under control again, wiping away the tears and seeing that Steve has shed a few tears of his own. Now that he has some space to look around, Danny can see the team moving around the house. Alicia is lying at little ways away from them in a pile of her own blood, shot through the chest. She’s still breathing but only just.

“Come on,” Steve says, hauling him up onto his feet before Danny can register what he’s doing. Steve walks him outside where an ambulance and cruisers have just pulled up and doesn’t let go of him until the doctors force him to give them space at the exam room doors.

\---

Bridget’s visit comes at the perfect time. Danny’s gunshot wound is all but healed, even the nightmares have slowed down to less than once a week, and he’s finally stopped checking over his shoulder. The evidence they found at Alicia’s had linked her to their three murders as well as the previous ones connected to Dr. Gray and had gone a long way towards Danny finding closure. Alicia’s manipulations had taken a huge toll on Danny but now she’s gone and, with the help of a therapist, he’s slowly but surely moving on. Governor Mahoe gave the team a week off for them to come to terms with everything. It’s been a slow process but listening to Bridget’s stories about Danny’s rebellious teenage years go a long way towards finding that normalcy again.

It’s Bridget’s last night on the island, she flies out in just a few hours bound for New Jersey, and they had decided to hold a cookout so that she could meet the whole family. She had taken to them instantly, deeming them all the perfect adopted family. Danny had protested at that, citing how they ate pineapple on pizza and surfed and spoke in made up languages and that the pizza thing alone meant that they were crazy, but Bridget had just laughed at him and said that she was happy that he found people he could be himself with. That had shut Danny up and Steve’s been smiling ever since but, like the saying goes, all good things must come to an end, and their end comes at 10pm.

Bridget waits until the last possible minute before she says her goodbyes, giving Danny a long hug that they both seem reluctant to end. She makes the rounds, telling Grace she misses her and to not take any of her dad’s shit and telling Charlie that she was so happy that she got to meet him.

“Come on, Steve, walk me to my car,” Bridget says and he gets out of his chair, leaving a sleepy Charlie behind in the now empty seat. He can tell that there’s something on her mind, something that she doesn’t want to say in front of everybody else, and he waits her out until she makes the first move.

“I was worried, you know?” Bridget finally says leaning against the side of her rental car and looking back at everybody on the lanai, “Danny’s always been about family so when he moved so far away from all of us, I didn’t know how he would take it. He’s never lived more than an hour away from our parents’ house, so when he comes to Sunday dinner one day and announces that he’s moving to Hawaii to be with Grace… I was concerned. He doesn’t open up easily but he needs someone to open up to. Back in Jersey he had a bunch of us. Me, and Stella, and… Matt.

“I swear I spent the first six months he was living here with my stomach tied in knots. He never shared much when he called us. He would talk about Grace and the things they did when he had her but that was it. He never talked about any friends, he never even talked about his work. I think he knew that if he did we would have figured out how bad a time he was having here,” Bridget continues and he remembers so clearly the person that Danny used to be. So angry about everything, so defensive because he never knew which direction the next blow was going to come from, but most of all, lying below all of the bluster was an extraordinary sadness from having to leave behind everything that he knew and loved. That man is so different to the one sitting out on Steve’s lanai, wiping chocolate fudge from his son's face while he laughs over something Lou is saying.

“Then,” Bridget continues, drawing him out of his gazing, “all of a sudden he starts talking about this new task force and his new asshole of a partner, Steve.” She smiles as Steve chuckles, because he’s sure that back then Danny would have used a few stronger words than asshole, but she doesn’t stop her story, “and that’s how I knew things were finally shaping up for him.”

“Because he called me an asshole?” Steve can’t resist asking.

“No, dummy,” Bridget says, shoving into him jokingly, “because he was talking again. Mostly about you, but he was talking, and just like that all my worry was gone and I knew things were going to be okay because Danny found himself a whole new family out here.”

Steve can’t help that he beams with pride at her words, but instead of teasing him about it, Bridget turns and hugs him. “Thank you for giving that back to him,” she says into his chest as he wraps his arms around her.

“Trust me, we need Danny just as much as he needs us,” he tells her as she pulls away from him.

“Well, I’m grateful you all found each other, but if I can give you a bit of sisterly advice? Don’t make him wait too long.” He blushes at her words, grateful that it’s dark enough this far down the driveway that she can’t see how red he’s turning.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he tries to lie but he should know by now that he can never fool a Williams.

“Sure. Just like I don’t know what that box in your pocket is,” Bridget says, poking him in the leg, just above a small, almost imperceptible bulge in his side pocket, “Just trust me, the quicker you ask him, the happier you both will be.”

“It’s just- we haven’t been dating that long. What if he says no?” he confesses his doubts. He’s known that he’s in love with Danny for years but in the grand scheme of things they’ve only been together five months, that’s not a long time.

“Steven,” Bridget says in a tone so like Danny’s it has him wondering if it’s a Williams genetic trait, “You’ve been dating for seven years now, the two of you just never realized it. By most relationship standards you’d be working on your second kid by now,” she jokes, then more seriously, “In no universe would my brother ever say no to marrying you.”

He looks back at Danny with a renewed confidence only to see that Danny is staring at the two of them from his seat. Even from this far away he can see that Danny looks happy, the tightness in his shoulders is finally gone and even though he’s giving them a questioning look, it doesn’t overshadow his easy smile. Bridget has to poke him again to get his attention away from Danny but she just shakes her head at him and pulls him down into another hug, laughing at his behavior. “Trust me,” she tells him again with a pointed look in Danny’s direction before she climbs into her rental car and drives away, beeping her horn goodbye as she drives out of sight.

Danny’s waiting for him when he turns back around, leaning against the fence as he approaches. “So what did the two of you have so much to talk about?” Danny asks but Steve just smiles and loops an arm over his shoulders, Danny’s arm immediately wraps around his waist as he walks them back towards the party.

“Trust me, Danno, you’ll find out soon enough,” he promises.

**Author's Note:**

> Check out my [Tumblr](http://www.erandri.tumblr.com)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Fanmix for The Devil You Know](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10578876) by [pterawaters](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pterawaters/pseuds/pterawaters)




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